Especially Now
by Litanya
Summary: A birthday fic for Steph. AU after season 2. If you had a chance to fix the biggest mistake you ever made, would you be brave enough to do so? A tragic accident gives Quinn and Puck the chance to get back something they thought lost forever...


Litanya: Firstly: HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPH! Yes, I am only 5 days late this year- a new record! I hope you had a fantastic birthday and that you were not permanently damaged by that guy's birthday strip at the bar. Or Josh's response to the birthday strip in the bar...

Anyway this fic is AU after season 2, because that is when I started writing it. I thought I'd get a head start so I would be on time, but that didn't quite pan out. So basically this fic starts a few days after Nationals and is pretty much completely AU- season 3 doesn't happen at all in this fic and you'll quickly see why. Anyway, I don't own Glee or any of the characters in this fic. Enjoy (and be warned for OOCness).

Ooh my other disclaimer: I do not have any experience with young children. I teach high school students and I have no nieces or nephews or baby cousins or anything like that, so I am clueless about how toddlers act, as will become quite clear in this fic. Still, I hope you'll forgive my ignorance and enjoy the fic anyway.

_**Especially Now**_

Quinn Fabray was in the middle of eating an awkward dinner with her mother when her iPhone rang. She wasn't supposed to bring it to the dinner table- her mother had gone on and on about dinner being prime mother-daughter bonding time- but she always brought it anyway. She wasn't really sure whether it was to get back at her mother for all of the months she had abandoned her for, or whether she was just addicted to her phone, but she always made sure to display it prominently on the table every night.

"_Hello, is this Quinn Fabray?"_ she didn't recognise the voice on the phone, but it was a high-pitched male voice. She quickly ran the names of the male adults she knew in her life, but other than her dad and Mr. Schuster, she couldn't think of anyone and she knew that it wasn't either of those.

"Uh hi... yeah this is Quinn," she ignored the curious glare her mother was currently shooting her and pushed her food around her plate with her fork in her left hand. She was suddenly nervous, and she didn't know why.

"_Ah, good, I have the right number,_" the man sounded intensely relieved, and in the background a young child began to cry, _"My name is Andrew. I work for the Department of Children Services- mainly with children going into foster care and all of that. Are you sitting down?"_ The man sounded really nervous, as though he was making a call he had never made before. The sick feeling in her stomach grew as she realised that she didn't want to hear what he was going to say.

"W-what's going on? Is... Is there something wrong with-with Beth?" she dropped her fork and wrapped her left arm around her stomach, unconsciously mirroring a move she had made many times whilst pregnant. She felt a deep ache in her heart, an ache that had been present ever since she had given her little girl away. The people at the adoption agency had told her that the ache would leave her after a while, but it never had. She missed her daughter every day and sometimes, usually late on a Saturday night, when no one was around, it hurt so much that she almost thought she was dying.

"_Oh no- Beth is fine!"_ the man assured her quickly, but she sensed his hesitation.

"What's going on?" she demanded to know, the panic at not knowing what this was all about making her snap. She was relieved that Beth was okay, but she knew that something else was up. She felt upset and worried and angry and frustrated and... Well, a whole host of other things she couldn't quite name. It was amazing how just a few sentences from a stranger could set her emotions off like this- and all because he had mentioned that he worked with the foster care system. Her mother had stopped eating and was staring at her with a concerned look on her face. It had been a while since Quinn had seen Judy look at her like that- worried- and it made her feel even worse.

"_Shelby Corcoran was in a car accident today. I'm sorry to say that she died. We have Beth here in our custody and according to Shelby's wishes we need to inform you and ask what you would like to do about Beth. We can put her into foster care temporarily and then she can be adopted out, or you can take her back,"_ Quinn felt the world stop for a moment. Shelby was dead and Beth needed a mother. Did he say that they wanted to know if she wanted to give her baby away again?

"W-what?" she whispered into the phone, finding it hard to breathe, let alone talk. The man- Andrew- seemed to sense that he had lost her.

"_Well, you are Beth's biological mother, and as Beth has only just turned one, we have to make sure that you haven't changed your mind about the adoption. Shelby was very clear in her wishes that if anything happened to her, Beth should be offered to you first before being placed in foster care. We can place Beth with a family or you can come and pick her up if your circumstances have changed and you decide that you would like her back,"_ Quinn felt too overwhelmed to speak. She opened her mouth several times, but no words would come out. Her mother sensed that something serious was going on and snatched the phone out of her hands.

Quinn found that she couldn't move. Her mother was having a conversation with Andrew- her voice kept on changing from high pitched squeals to low murmurs, but Quinn didn't really hear any of it. Beth could come home to her. She could have her daughter back. She could fill that hole in her heart that she had gained that day at the hospital when she had said her goodbyes.

She could finally see if Beth had inherited her blonde hair, or Puck's eyes, or her nose or his chin or... she could finally get to know whether or not her daughter was anything like her, or all like Puck. Puck... He would kill her if she didn't talk to him.

She didn't really know where she stood with Puck now. Before Beth had been born, they had been... almost happy. She would never admit it to anyone, but she had been the happiest she had ever been because of him. He had made mistakes and hurt her a few times- she would admit that- but in the end he had made her feel good and loved and she had just been happy.

But then Beth had been born and they had to give her up. She was sure that he hadn't forgiven her for giving their daughter away. He had made it clear from the start that he wanted to keep her and be a family, but he wouldn't have been the one getting up at 2a.m. in the morning to change Beth, or be the one to skip classes at school to feed her, or really have to radically change his life to make sure that Beth was okay. Sure, he may have come over a lot to her house and helped out with Beth a little, but he wouldn't have had to sacrifice _everything_.

It had been a very hard decision and it had severely broken her heart to do it, but at the time she had seen no other way to survive. Shelby was very nice and she had known that she would be a good mother to Beth. And so she had signed Beth away, and by doing so she had doomed her and Puck.

He hadn't said anything about being angry at her for giving up on his idea of them being a family, but she could see the pain and frustration in his eyes every time she looked at him. He was hurting so badly from her decision- not only did he not get to see his daughter anymore, but she had made him feel like the father he so despised. She had hurt him in so many ways by her decision that she couldn't face him anymore. She had broken off their relationship (or whatever it was... it felt way too _real_ for a high school relationship, and that scared her) only a week after leaving Beth at the hospital. It had felt like the right thing to do.

He hadn't taken the break up very well. He had made it very clear that he still wanted her- singing to her and calling her every night. She never picked up the phone. She didn't know what to say to him- she had no words that could heal the gap she felt growing between them every day where their daughter should have been. He hadn't understood and he had fallen into a depression so deep that she had been genuinely scared for his life.

When he had gone to juvie for crashing his car into a convenience store, she knew that she had to do something. Sam's timing couldn't have been more perfect. She knew that if she made it look like she had moved on, that she was happy now then Puck would be able to move on too and be happy.

She had succeeded a little too much in her plan. Using Sam had worked like a charm- Puck had been heart-broken the first time he had seen them together- but he had hidden it quite well. She had been pleased to see that he began to hang out with Artie a lot more and improve his grades and behaviour and she knew that her plan was working.

When he had started pursuing Lauren Zizes however, she hadn't known how to feel. She could still see the pain and hurt in his eyes whenever she looked hard enough, but he seemed so happy, so _content_ with Lauren that it hurt. Was he really happier with the wrestler than he had been with her? Had he managed to find someone who could fill that hole that Beth had made in their hearts? She had avoided the new couple like they had the plague and had even found herself going back to Finn, trying to get back some semblance of _normality_ because Puck and Lauren just didn't make sense.

Things were slightly better between the two of them now- after Finn had dumped her for Rachel she had found herself running instinctually back to Puck- not literally of course, because he had Lauren-but she couldn't stop herself from hanging around him. They were slowly repairing their friendship and now... now Beth was back.

"...will call him back as soon as we have made a decision, okay? So we can take our time to decide what we're going to do, honey. It's going to be okay," she jumped as her mother put her hands on her shoulders. Judy was smiling at her- a really shaky false smile, but it was enough to make Quinn realise that she had blanked out the world for at least a few minutes. Her mother had finished on the phone and looked as pale and shaken as Quinn felt.

"W-what?" Quinn didn't feel like any of this was real. It _couldn't_ be real. She had given Beth away- Beth was supposed to have a good mother and a nice, happy life ahead of her with Shelby. It wasn't fair for this to be real.

"Oh honey," Judy pulled her into a hug. It was strange. They had never been a hugging family- they were more used to pretending to care about each other than being warm- and so the hug actually made Quinn feel even further from reality than she had before.

"I just... it's not true, right? This is someone's idea of a practical joke, isn't it? They're going to call me back in five minutes and scream 'gotcha!' or something like that and everything is going to go back to the way it's supposed to be. They can't ask me to give her up again, right?" she mumbled into her mother's shoulder. She felt like a five year old pleading with her mother for an extra five minutes playtime before bed. Judy didn't say anything for a moment, but started to run a finger through her hair. Quinn wished that her mother had been this affectionate when she was younger- it just felt too strange now.

"I wish I could say it was, but unfortunately that was not a prank. I know it's going to be hard honey, but you have a decision to make," the words felt like a hammer hitting her heart, but she knew that her mother was right. She had to make a choice; she just didn't want to do it alone.

"I guess... I should call Puck. He might uh... he's going to... I don't know what to do," she hated feeling out of control, and right now she had no idea what she was meant to do. Her life was, once again, falling to pieces.

"Oh... yes, I suppose that would be the right thing to do," Judy stumbled, releasing her hold on Quinn to wring her hands. It was one of her nervous habits. Quinn knew that Judy didn't really like Puck- more on principle than anything else because Judy had never really had a chance to have a proper conversation with the boy- but it was a sign of how hard her mother was trying that she didn't try to talk her out of it.

Despite saying that she was going to call him, Quinn didn't make any move towards her phone. She knew that she had to call, but taking that step would mean that she was accepting that this was happening and she was more used to denial than acceptance.

"Do you... have you any idea what you want to do? I mean, I know it's important that Noah has his say, but I think you should have your decision in mind so that he doesn't make you agree to something you don't want," Judy said a little hesitantly, still wringing her hands, "I mean, I support whatever decision you want to make. Like I told you last year, we can turn the guest room into a nursery and I can help out with babysitting when you're at school on the days I don't have work. We are definitely set up financially to support another person, and Noah and his family will probably contribute something, if you make the decision to bring Beth here. I also support you if you want to let Beth be adopted by someone else again- it was a good decision last year and I will still support it again this year. What do you want to do?"

It was information overload. She appreciated the fact that her mother was there, supporting her, but at the same time... she needed space.

"I can't... I think..." she said the words slowly, trying desperately to buy herself some time, "I can't... I can't give her away again. Once was hard enough and just the thought of having to do it again... I can't Mum." She felt tears well up in her eyes and the pain in her heart deepened at the thought of essentially abandoning her baby girl once again.

Judy took a deep breath and Quinn noticed tears in her eyes as well.

"It's good that you know what you want. I think... would Noah be home now? I think it might be best if we go over there and let him and his family know about what's going on. I just don't think that this is a decision you should be making over the phone," again, Judy made some good points, but again Quinn couldn't quite get herself to act on them. Instead of grabbing her coat and keys and making a move towards leaving for Puck's place, she sat down heavily in her seat (which was odd, because she didn't quite know when she had left her seat in the first place.)

"I just... I just need a moment," she told her mother. Judy nodded and, after a moment's hesitation, took the dinner plates off of the table and disappeared into the kitchen. Quinn sighed a little in relief at her mother's departure, but then the details of the situation hit her again and she couldn't stop herself from breaking down.

She wasn't really sure whether or not she was happy or sad- she supposed that she was upset by the fact that Shelby was dead- the woman had seemed like a really nice person (otherwise she wouldn't have been allowed to take Beth)- but at the same time... Quinn was going to be able to fill the hole that Beth had left. She was going to get her daughter back and that made her feel happy. She felt guilty for that- she shouldn't be happy that Beth was going to be forced to grow up with a single teenaged mother- but she couldn't help it.

She knew that it would probably be best for Beth if she gave her up for adoption again, but she couldn't do it. She had only just managed to give Beth to Shelby, and that had only happened because she had met her and also because Rachel was a pretty good person. (She knew that Shelby hadn't had anything to do with raising Rachel, but she was going on the basis of genetics... she assumed that there was a 'good person' gene and Rachel definitely had that... even if she was annoying in large doses). The adoption people probably wouldn't let her screen the new potential parents for Beth and that was just something Quinn couldn't live with. What happened if they gave her to bad people who abused her? How would she be able to live with herself then?

There was also the purely selfish reason of wanting to see Beth. She knew that this would be her only chance to get to see her daughter, and even though it came at a price, she couldn't refuse. Part of the reason she had given Beth up had been because she hadn't known if she would survive being a parent, but now she knew that she would do anything to fill that hole in her heart. She wasn't happy without Beth, and even though she knew it was going to be hard, she wanted her back so badly.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, her head in her arms and tears streaming down her cheeks, but when her mother finally re-emerged from the kitchen, she knew that she had to pull herself together. If she had thought that hearing the news about Shelby and Beth was hard, she knew that what she was about to face was going to be a lot worse. She was not looking forward to Puck's reaction to this at all.

As she went into the bathroom to wash away the evidence of her tears, she sent up a small prayer that Puck wouldn't blame her for the newest development in their lives, and that everything would turn out alright.

* * *

><p>"Mum, Noah won't let me watch TV!" Puck rolled his eyes as his little sister Sarah whined and dobbed him into their mother. She had been bugging him for the last ten minutes about wanting to watch some chick-flick that was on one of the stations, but he was on a roll in his game- he had killed 50 zombies without losing a life so far- and he wasn't going to let that go to waste. He was normally pretty good with letting Sarah have what she wanted- she was a sweet girl and she deserved to have more in life than he and their mother could give her- but he wasn't in the mood today. He had had a pretty shit week and he felt that he needed a good zombie-killing marathon to make it all better.<p>

The week had started off on a bad note when Lauren had decided to break it off with him. Apparently she had been accepted into some exclusive wrestling camp in LA this summer and she didn't want to bother with the whole 'long distance' thing. She had told him quite bluntly that she had enjoyed their time together, but that she was pretty sure that it wasn't going to work out because he wasn't ready to handle her high maintenance lifestyle... or something like that. He had honestly tuned out as soon as he realised that she was dumping him.

He had to admit that it had stung to be rejected again by another chick. First Santana had dumped him over a bad credit rating (which he still didn't get), then Rachel had caught onto the fact that he was using her and dumped him and then Mercedes had rejected him... but of course during all of this Quinn had rejected him time and time again... and now Lauren Zizes had realised that he wasn't good enough and he was back to being alone again.

He hadn't even liked her that much- or so he had been telling himself all week. Sure she had been fun to hang out with, but he had been finding more and more that that was all. He liked making out with her- he was a guy after all- but he had never felt anything close to the passion and heat he had felt when he had been with Quinn. Then again, he didn't really expect to feel anything like that ever again- he knew that what he had with the blonde ex-cheerleader was a one-of-a-kind deal. If he had been a chick he would have said that she was his soul mate, but he was a dude and so he preferred to just think of it as being one-of-a-kind.

When Quinn had given up Beth, it had hurt. He had to admit that it had felt almost as though she had taken a knife and stabbed it straight through his back, into his heart. For the first couple of hours he had been angry at her and he'd been unable to look or talk to her properly. But after a couple of hours he had looked up and accidentally caught her gaze and the pain and sorrow in her eyes had made him realise that she hadn't wanted to give Beth up. She had looked guilty and ashamed and as soon as he had made eye contact, she had flinched a little and looked away.

That had made him really think about her decision. It was easier for him to pretend that they could have looked after Beth and been the perfect family. He didn't want to admit it, but it was true- he _always_ had the option of walking away. He liked to think that he never would have taken that option- he didn't want to be the dead beat his own father was- but he had that option. Quinn wouldn't have had that opportunity. If she had kept Beth then her whole life would have radically changed- her living arrangements, her school life, her social life... the list would go on and on. Yes, he would have made sacrifices to make it work too, but not as many as she would have had to make. So he came to understand why she did it, and whilst he still felt a little betrayed, he forgave her.

The only problem was she didn't forgive herself. For the whole week that they were still 'together' after Beth was born, she barely looked at him. She withdrew into herself more and more as the week went on. She never wanted to hang out like they had before Beth had been born and she was always making excuses to do things for him that didn't really need doing- like offering to make him lunch or baking a cake or something weird like that.

He had tried to tell her that it was okay, that he understood her decision and that he forgave her, but she would never listen. In fact, sometimes he thought that whenever he was talking and telling her that stuff, she was hearing him blame her or some weird shit like that. He worried constantly about her, but she didn't see that- she only seemed to see the pain that giving Beth away had caused and nothing else.

He hadn't been surprised when she had broken up with him at the end of that week, but it hadn't stopped it from hurting. She had taken a large part of his heart, and along with the portion that Beth had taken, he had felt that he hadn't had much more to lose.

He knew that he hadn't been in a good place after Quinn had left. He had become quite depressed and it had gotten so bad that he had tried to drive into a convenience store just to get it all to go away. Of course that hadn't worked and so he had been forced to come up with some lame excuse about trying to steal the ATM. All of that had led to juvie, where he had had to sit through compulsory therapy with a psychologist. It was there that he had been diagnosed with depression- the psychologist had managed to get him talking about himself and when they heard that he had regularly thought about ending it all, they referred him to a psychiatrist, who had given him a lovely prescription for anti-depressants.

The drugs worked most of the time, but sometimes (like this week) they just weren't enough to stop everything from catching up with him. Lauren's rejection hurt because it reminded him of Quinn, who was starting to act more like her real self, and their daughter and that all reminded him of what a loser he was and how his life was going nowhere and how it would just be so easy to-

"Noah, let your sister watch her movie. You just died anyway," his mother commanded, looking up from her spot on the sofa, where she was reading the newspaper. He flashed his eyes back at the screen, unaware that he had tuned out from his game and his character had been decapitated by a horde of zombies. He shook his head and threw the controller down on the floor. He hadn't noticed that he had zoned out.

"Can I watch it now?" Sarah asked impatiently, her hand hovering on the remote. He shrugged half-heartedly, not having the energy to give a verbal reply. Sarah immediately switched the channel over and threw herself onto the couch to get comfortable for the movie. (Puck was sitting on the floor in front of the couch because the controller wouldn't reach far enough for him to have a proper seat.)

"Are you okay Noah?" he looked back to see that his mother hadn't gone back to reading the paper, but had instead kept her eyes locked on the spot he was sitting. She looked worried. Ever since the psychologist had told her about his diagnosis she had looked at him as though he was on the verge of breaking. He hated it. He knew that she blamed herself for it, but no matter how many times he told her that it wasn't her fault, she would mutter something about working too much or some shit like that and turn away. It drove him nuts.

"I'm fine Ma, just tired is all," he lied, hating himself for being so weak. He should be over this by now- it had been over a year now and it was becoming pathetic. His mother frowned more and looked on the verge of saying something when there was a knock on the front door. He sent up a quick message of thanks to whatever God was listening (a habit he had picked up from Quinn- that girl prayed more than he personally believed was healthy, and somehow he had managed to pick it up from her) and climbed to his feet, "I'll go get that."

He forced himself to smile at his mother and his sister shushed him as she tried to listen to some crap about love that the male lead in the movie was saying. His mother waved him off, but the worried look remained on her face as she turned back to the paper. He quickly walked to the door, wondering who would be coming to visit at eight o'clock on a Tuesday night in the middle of summer. He guessed it was probably Finn- the quarterback was pretty useless when it came to etiquette- but at the same time he was sure that his best friend had mentioned that he had plans with Rachel for the rest of the week.

"Hello Noah, can we come in?" to say that he was surprised to see Judy Fabray, with Quinn hovering nervously in the background, would be the understatement of the year.

Firstly, he was sure that Quinn's mother hated him- she had never made any attempts to speak with him and she looked at him as though he was some sort of bug she wanted to squish with her shoe, but was afraid of killing something that had a soul... or something like that anyway.

Secondly, Quinn had made it perfectly clear for at least half a year that she wanted nothing to do with him. Yes, she had started hanging with him and Lauren a bit after Finn had dumped her, but he was more convinced that that was about her being friends with Lauren than anything to do with him. She and Lauren had become kind-of close after the whole Quinn-Lucy secret came out, and Lauren was really independent and bad-ass so to Puck it made sense that Quinn would want to hang with her after being rejected. As far as he was concerned, she was only hanging out with him lately because he hung out with Lauren.

"Uh..." his brain wasn't working- the shock was too much, "Y-yeah I mean... of course." He stepped aside and the two blondes entered the apartment, the older looking around curiously, having never been there before, whilst the younger fidgeted nervously.

"Is your mum home?" Quinn asked quietly, more to fill the awkward silence than anything else. She sounded upset, like something had shaken her quite badly and it all just added to his confusion. A bad feeling settled in the bottom of his stomach. He didn't know if he could handle any more bad news this week.

"Yeah, um... follow me," he led the pair down the hallway and into the living room, where Sarah was completely engrossed in her movie. His mother looked up, and when she saw who the visitors were, she quickly gathered up the paper and stood.

"Quinn, hi, it's nice to see you again. Noah didn't mention that you were coming," she shot him a look that told him how happy she was to have unexpected guests, "Sarah, why don't you go and watch your movie in my room? I almost forgot that I got the TV in there fixed yesterday." Sarah sighed loudly and made a show of being annoyed as she switched her movie off and stomped into the other room.

"We're sorry to bother you so late, but something important has come up and we felt that you should know straight away," Judy apologised, wringing her hands. Quinn stayed silent. She was staring at a photo on the wall that had been taken while she had been staying at the Puckerman house. It was a photo of the whole Puckerman family- Puck, Sarah and his mother- with Quinn standing next to Puck. She had been showing pretty heavily when the photo had been taken. In the photo his arm was around her waist and her head was resting on his shoulder. They had been happy then.

"Okay..." his mother said when it became obvious he wasn't going to say anything, "Why don't we all sit down and then you can tell us why you're here." They all took a seat- Judy and Quinn took the couch, his mother nabbed the armchair and after a few seconds of internal debate, he decided to just sit on the floor. He had a feeling that he was going to need all of his energy for the discussion ahead, and since he felt really worn out, he didn't have the energy to bring in a chair from the kitchen as well.

An awkward silence fell over them as soon as everyone was settled. Judy was staring at Quinn as though trying to have a telepathic conversation with her. Quinn, for her part, seemed to be looking everywhere other than at the other people in the room. His mother kept staring at him, then at Quinn, and then at him again, as though waiting for one of them to crack. He just stared at the floor in front of him, trying to gain the energy to start the discussion going.

"Shelby was in a car accident today and she died," Quinn said quietly, just as his mother opened her mouth to start them talking. Puck froze. Of all the reasons that had briefly entered his mind as soon as he had seen her standing on the doorstep, anything to do with Beth or Shelby had not been there. He had had to forcefully tell himself every day for the past year that Beth was gone and that he would never see her again, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to function. It had been hard, but he had done it and he had managed to make himself believe that Beth would never touch his life again. Now... now he couldn't think, couldn't breathe. Something had happened to Shelby and that meant that Beth was going to touch his world again and he didn't know if he could handle it.

"That's terrible!" his mother exclaimed, her hand going to the Star of David that she wore around her neck. Puck heard the words, but they didn't really register in his mind, "Wait- what about Beth? Is she okay? Was she in the car?" These words did register, and he listened intently for the answer. He kept his eyes locked firmly on the floor in front of him- he didn't think that he could move anyway, even if he had wanted to.

"No, she's fine. They... they said that Shelby said that if anything ever happened to her... well they said they had to contact me because... they wanted to know if I wanted Beth back or if I wanted them to put her into a foster home so that she could go up for adoption again," his lungs were starting to burn from the lack of oxygen, but he couldn't force the air into his lungs. He felt like he knew what Quinn was about to say- that she had told them to take Beth away again- and he couldn't handle hearing that again. He couldn't handle it, but he couldn't move either. His body felt like it was shutting down, disconnecting itself from his brain.

"What did you tell them?" he was glad that his mother was there, because he certainly couldn't speak.

"Well, we told them that we would get back to them. I... I thought that we should all talk it over before we make a decision," Quinn's voice was shaking and it took a few moments for her words to register in his brain. She hadn't abandoned their daughter. She wanted their opinion and there was still a chance for Beth to be a part of their lives. The relief that he felt at that statement was enormous, and he was able to breathe again.

"I think that would be a good idea," his mother said, shooting him a concerned look. She was worried that he hadn't said anything yet. He knew that he would have to speak soon otherwise she would freak out.

"What do you want to do?" he managed to ask. His voice sounded a little weird- a bit shaky and hoarse- but he thought that it was okay considering the circumstances. His lungs still ached a little from being deprived of oxygen for what seemed like eternity, and his hands were shaking from the adrenaline boost, but he was recovering. He just hoped that no one had noticed his minor panic attack. He could now move as well as breathe, so he lifted his eyes up from the floor to look at Quinn.

"I-I don't know," Quinn was still avoiding looking at him. She was biting her lip and tapping her fingers on her knee as she studiously looked everywhere but at him. Judy looked surprised at Quinn's answer and he had the feeling that the mother-daughter pair had talked about this before they had arrived.

"Sweetie, you already told me what you want to do. You and Noah need to be honest with each other if you want to make the right decision," Puck hadn't expected Judy to give such good, supportive advice. He had honestly believed that she would be more of a hindrance to the conversation, that she would make Quinn less likely to be honest. To hear the Queen of Denial (a nickname Quinn had once given her) tell them that they needed to be honest... well, it was something he had never expected.

Still, Quinn didn't look all that eager to speak, so he decided to help her out.

"You already know what I want to do," he told her simply, knowing that she would recall his opinion from the hospital, "My feelings haven't really changed. I understand why you gave her to Shelby, but I don't think I'd be able to give Beth away to a couple of strangers." He knew that his mother wouldn't be all that happy with him- she wanted to be able to see and get to know her granddaughter, but at the same time she was convinced that keeping Beth would ruin their lives. They had had this discussion many times before Beth had been born, and he couldn't imagine her thoughts on the matter changing too much.

"I would fully support the pair of you if you decide to take Beth back," his mother added on to his comment, again taking him by surprise. She turned to face him, as though sensing his confusion, and explained, "I know how hard it was for you the first time and I don't want to watch you go through that again. I know that it will be hard for the two of you if you do decide to raise Beth, but given everything that's happened this year... I think it would be better for you if you did keep her." It meant a lot to him that she would say that. May Puckerman was a very loving woman, but she was normally very set in her beliefs and to hear that she had changed her mind about something she felt very strongly about (another point of contention about Beth had been the fact that Quinn wasn't Jewish, and as May took her religion _very_ seriously, she had been adamant that Beth should be adopted) felt good.

"I don't think I could survive giving her away again," Quinn's admission was so quiet that he barely caught it. She still wasn't looking at anyone. It was almost as if she was embarrassed by her admission, that she thought that she was weak because she didn't want to have to say goodbye to their daughter again.

"I know I wouldn't," he admitted, partly because he wanted to make her understand that she wasn't weak for feeling this way, and partly because he couldn't stop himself. May and Judy exchanged some sort of significant look, but Puck didn't care. Quinn had finally looked at him and it caught all of his attention.

Her eyes were red-rimmed- she had obviously been crying. Despite that, there was a glimmer of hope, almost a sparkle, in her eyes that he hadn't seen for a very long time. He had thought at various points during the school year that she had been happy, that she had gotten over losing Beth. He realised now that what he had _thought_ was happiness was just a cover. She may have been content with her life at times, but she hadn't been happy- not until now.

The darkness that he had felt hovering over his heart and his mind for the past week was dissipating as the reality of the situation began to set in. They were going to get their daughter back.

"Okay, so when I talked to the social worker when he called, he gave me a couple of options. He said that we could either pick Beth up tonight, or that she could stay with a foster family for the night and we could collect her tomorrow. It is pretty late right now, and as we don't really have anything safe for a one-year old to sleep in, or play with or anything, I suggest that we allow Beth to spend the night in foster care and then collect her tomorrow. We can go shopping for a cot and a changing table and a stroller and everything else that we will need in the morning," Judy's logic was pretty good, but it didn't stop him from feeling a little disappointed. He had kind of hoped that they could just go and get Beth straight away. Looking at Quinn, he knew that he wasn't the only one.

"I know that you probably want to go over and get her now, but you've waited over a year, so you can wait another night, surely," his mother added her opinion, probably reading the impatience in his expression, "I have tomorrow off work and so I can help with the shopping and help out with Beth. The two of you have no real experience with infants and Judy and I can help with that. I'm assuming that Beth will have her own room at your house?" Quinn nodded, obviously as overwhelmed by the situation as he was.

"We have a spare room that we are going to convert into a nursery," Judy confirmed, "I do have work tomorrow, unfortunately, but it's only a half day so I should be available to help out in the early afternoon. Speaking of availability, we should probably call that social worker back with your decision so we can organise when and where to get Beth from tomorrow."

Everything was happening so quickly that he felt a little dizzy. He was excited about seeing his daughter again, but he was also absolutely terrified. It was slowly sinking into his brain that from tomorrow, he was going to be a father again. He supposed that he had been a father ever since Beth had been born, but now he was going to be an _actual_ father in that he was going to be raising his kid.

"Uh yeah... we should probably do that," Quinn agreed with her mother, but she didn't sound very certain. He knew that the reality was sinking in for her too. He knew that she was terrified and he hoped that she knew that he would be there as much as he could. He wasn't going to allow himself to sit back and let Quinn handle everything with Beth- he was going to be there every step of the way. He didn't care if he had to sleep on the floor of Beth's room at night- he was going to help out. Of course he had absolutely no idea how to raise a one year old, but he was a quick learner when he wanted to be, so he was sure that he could wing it until he figured it out.

"Judy, would you like some tea? I think maybe we should let these two talk about things before we call that social worker," Judy nodded at May's suggestion and gave Quinn a small pat on the shoulder as she made her way to the kitchen. May raised an eyebrow at her son before following the blonde out of the room. He could hear the two adults talking quietly in the kitchen and he knew they were talking about him and Quinn and Beth, but he couldn't care about that now.

"This is... everything about this is fucked up, right?" he finally broke the silence that had fallen at the adults' departure, "I mean... we've spent the past year telling ourselves that we're never going to see her again and now..." He couldn't stop himself from chuckling. He had no idea why he was so amused all of a sudden, but the whole situation seemed so surreal that he couldn't help it. Quinn seemed to have been struck by the same sense of surrealism as he had, because she giggled.

"All this time I've been telling myself we made the right decision and then the moment I get to change it... We have a one year old," she said, her voice at a higher pitch than normal as her emotions got the better of her. She laughed again, "We have a _one year old_." She laughed so hard that she half fell off the couch until she was seated on the floor in front of it. This lack of _properness_ was so unlike the Quinn everyone knew at school that he felt privileged to see it.

"We have a one year old who doesn't really know who we are," he suddenly realised. He had been thinking that no one at school really knew Quinn, and how much they were missing out on by believing her perfect mask, and then it came to him that they had missed the past year of Beth's life. That meant that she wouldn't recognise them- she may even be _scared_ of them. The idea that his one year old daughter was not going to know who he was made his laughter stop pretty quickly. Quinn also stopped laughing and looked at the floor.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I was so sure that giving her to Shelby was the right thing to do. I wasn't ready to raise a baby and... If I wasn't selfish, I would probably give her up again because I still don't think I can do it." Her voice broke on a couple of words and he could see the tears flood into her eyes. He realised that the laughter from a few moments before had only been a cover for all of the insecurities that they were both hiding. (He had to include himself in that too, as he was pretty sure that they were being crazy in taking Beth back and he knew that he wasn't ideal father material).

"_We_ did the right thing in giving Beth to Shelby," he stressed the word we to try to tell her that he didn't blame her for that decision, but he wasn't sure if it sunk in, "And yeah, we probably are being selfish in wanting her back, but it's almost like it was meant to be. I mean... what are the chances of something like this happening? Maybe God or whatever realised that we weren't good enough parents to look after her for the first year, but that we were meant to raise her after that? I mean, isn't that the kind of thing Christians believe? That everything happens for a reason?" He was talking pure bullshit by the end of his speech, but it was something that he sort-of believed. The world kept on throwing Beth at them, so surely it meant that they were meant to be there for her?

"What, so like this is some sort of screwed up test or something? God wants to see if we have the strength and will to raise her to be someone for the side of good? Because really, I don't think either of us can be described as good people after last year," she wiped the tears away from her eyes a little angrily. He was surprised at the strength of her reaction to his words. He had always joked around about her religion and it had never bothered her before, but now it seemed as though she had taken his words a little too seriously.

"Maybe it's a case of 'two wrongs make a right' or whatever that shit saying is. And for the record, I am totally a good person and so are you. We just make pretty crappy choices sometimes," he hoped that she understood the distinction he had made. He knew for a fact that she was a good person at heart- he knew her better than anyone and she genuinely cared for other people underneath her ice-queen facade. He wasn't so sure about whether he himself was a good person, but he knew that if he brought that up, she would argue and he wasn't up for that right now.

"I hope so," she admitted quietly, "I don't want to screw this up. I have no idea what we're going to do you know? I mean, we're going to bring Beth back here and be her parents, but we're not even really friends at the moment and we live in different parts of the neighbourhood and we have glee and school and... How is this going to work?" Hearing that she didn't even think that they were friends stung. He had known that their relationship wasn't very good, but to be considered just an acquaintance or some shit like that... that was bad.

"Honestly, I don't care about all of that," he answered in the only way he could- straight to the point, "I will sleep on the floor in Beth's room if I have to. I don't care about glee and I don't care about all of that other shit- I will do whatever it takes to be there for Beth and for you. And we've _always_ been friends... we just haven't had much of a chance to talk lately, that's all. We'll figure it out, I promise." She didn't look entirely convinced, but she did brighten up enough to give him a small smile. He was glad that she could finally look at him- it had felt weird talking to someone who was staring at the floor like it was the best thing since sliced bread.

"I doubt that Lauren would be happy about you sleeping at my house, even if it was in Beth's room," she said, probably more to tease him than anything else. He internally winced at the reminder of his ex, but realised that Quinn hadn't known about his break up.

"I really doubt she'll care," he tried to keep his voice light and teasing, the way hers had almost been, but he wasn't sure that he pulled it off. She frowned at him for a second, as if realising that she had hit a nerve, but she didn't pursue it. He quickly thought of a different topic before she could get a chance to dwell on his reaction, "Do you think that Rachel knows about Shelby?" The lighter mood instantly disappeared as the catalyst for all of this was mentioned. Quinn ran a hand through her hair unconsciously twisting her fingers to get out all of the tangles.

"I don't know... I guess she probably knows. We should probably call her at some point tomorrow. Technically Rachel is Beth's step-sister or something like that... if adopted siblings still count," the idea that he was technically related to Rachel Berry through the adoption thoroughly disturbed him (it had never really occurred to him before, when Shelby had taken Beth, but now Quinn had mentioned it, he found it really creepy). He was about to say as much to her when their mothers returned to the living room, each bearing two cups of tea. They passed the tea out before returning to the seats they had left only moments before.

"Alright, so now we need to make the call and then we have to organise everything. Are you sure the two of you are ready for this? It's a massive step and it's okay if you have changed your mind," May took control as soon as everyone was settled. Puck looked at Quinn for guidance, knowing that he hadn't changed his mind, and hoping that she hadn't either.

"We're ready," she said with a small smile, the excitement coming back. It was funny how quickly they were going through the emotions- he still wasn't sure if he was happy, sad, excited or terrified. It was like all four of those emotions had fused together so solidly that it was impossible to feel one without feeling the others.

"You better be, because starting from tomorrow, you're going to have a child to take care of. We're going to help you along the way, but Beth is your daughter and that means she is your responsibility. It's going to be hard and sometimes you're going to feel like you've made the wrong choice, so you have to make sure now that you're going to be up for it, because once you've said yes to this, there's no going back," Judy reminded them. Puck took a deep breath, knowing how serious her words were. This was going to be hard, but he had made his choice. Looking at Quinn, he knew that she was right there with him on that one.

"We're ready," he tried to say confidently. He hoped that they didn't hear the little quiver in his voice halfway through- his nerves were showing. And with that Quinn dialled the number of the social worker and the plan to get Beth back was set in motion. He hoped like Hell that they weren't making a big mistake, because if they were, Beth would be the one to suffer the consequences.

* * *

><p>Quinn rolled over for what felt like the millionth time that night and grabbed her phone from her bedside table. She illuminated the display, hoping that it was close to the time she would need to get up. Unfortunately 2:18A.M flashed back at her. She glared at the numbers before tossing her phone back onto the table and thumping her head back onto her pillow.<p>

She couldn't sleep. After she and her mother had left Puck's house earlier that evening, all she had wanted to do was climb into the car, drive over to the house of the foster family Beth was staying with, and take her daughter back. As soon as she had gotten home she had come upstairs, ready to sleep away the hours that separated her from seeing Beth, but she was too excited and nervous and (even if she wouldn't admit it) terrified about what was going to happen that sleep evaded her.

She kept on telling herself that it would all be fine and that she needed to sleep to have enough energy for the day ahead, but her body wasn't listening to logic. It knew what it wanted, and right now, sleep was out of the question. She groaned and rolled over to check the time again. 2:19A.M. Great.

She was about to head down to the kitchen to make herself some tea, hoping it would calm her enough to go to sleep, when her phone vibrated with a text. It was from Puck.

_Hey I'm outside your house. Couldn't sleep. Come talk?_

Part of her was annoyed that he just assumed that she would let him in to chat, but mostly she was just relieved that she wouldn't be alone for the rest of this seemingly-eternal night. She knew that she could have woken up her mother and talked to her if she needed to, but it wasn't the same. Judy had never gone through this before- she had never had to give up a child and then be given the chance to take her back. Well, actually, she kind of had because she had abandoned Quinn whilst she had been pregnant and then begged for forgiveness, but it wasn't the same thing. Quinn had been sixteen- Beth was only a baby and had done absolutely nothing wrong (because sometimes Quinn felt that it really was her own fault that she had been kicked out... despite what other people said).

She considered texting him back, but knew that it would be a waste of time. Instead she climbed out of bed, threw her dressing gown around her shoulders to hide her pyjamas (she knew he wouldn't care, but she did) and headed to the front door. He was waiting for her on the doorstep. He didn't say anything as she opened the door and she didn't either. She just gestured for him to come in, and then together they went into the kitchen. She went over to the kettle, still hoping that some tea would help her get at least a little bit of sleep that night.

"So..." Puck finally said after she had put the kettle on and gotten a couple of mugs from the cupboard. He looked nervous, which was pretty strange. He was usually one of the most confident people she knew (at least outwardly) so for him to be showing his nerves... he must be really unnerved by the situation. He leant against the kitchen counter opposite her before jumping up and sitting on it. He drummed his hands against the top of the bench in a random pattern. She waited. She didn't want to be the one to start the conversation. He had come over- the ball was in his court, "I couldn't sleep. I tried to for like... well it seemed like fucking forever, but then my clock just kept telling me it was like five minutes and... I thought that maybe you wouldn't be able to sleep either 'cause like... we're getting her back tomorrow and it's fucking terrifying and..." He trailed off and shrugged. He looked a little embarrassed at all he had poured out, so she decided to take pity on him.

"I couldn't sleep either. I just want it to be eleven already," eleven was the time they had agreed with the social worker to pick up Beth. There were still a million things that they had to do before then- picking up a car seat, a stroller, a crib etc. - but eleven was when they would finally see her. She fidgeted with the teaspoon she was using to put sugar into her mug, knowing that while he probably understood, she hated talking about how she was really feeling. She was so used to pretending with everyone that it was hard for her to be real with someone, even if it was Puck.

"Same," he agreed, "I reckon it's going to be awesome to see her again. I mean, I could tell from the hospital that she's going to be awesome 'cause like, we're her parents but now we'll actually get to see that, you know?" She couldn't help but smile at his words. She remembered what he had said about Beth at the hospital and knew that he probably hadn't changed his opinion on it at all, but to hear him sound so confident about how good it was going to be to see her... it was just good to hear.

"Well, at least we know that she won't have a Mohawk," she teased as she poured the tea, feeling a lot more relaxed than she had before he had texted her. She wasn't sure why- maybe just knowing that she wasn't the only one too excited to sleep was enough to make her feel better or something like that. He pouted from his spot on the bench.

"You have to admit that it would have been pretty awesome if she did," he ran a hand through his own Mohawk, as if trying to prove that it looked good, "Well... maybe it would've been a bit weird, but hey, at least no one would be able to dispute that she's a badass." She rolled her eyes and handed him his tea before going back to the other side of the kitchen and leaning back against the bench there.

"You better not have any plans about teaching her the best way to throw a geek into a dumpster," she told him. He laughed and tea sloshed over the side of his mug, splashing onto his jeans. He put his tea down before jumping down and grabbing some paper towel to clean the mess up.

"Nah, she's going to be too cool to do that. I _will_ teach her how to slushie people though- the girl has to be able to defend herself," he finished cleaning up and hopped back up onto the bench.

She took a sip of her tea to hide her smile. Silence reigned for a few moments as they both sipped at their tea. It wasn't uncomfortable- in fact if she was honest with herself, she hadn't felt this content for a long time. It both amazed and annoyed her how he could affect her like this.

"How're you feeling about all of this? You know... being a mum and raising Beth?" he asked after a few minutes had passed. She missed the silence. She didn't want to answer his question because it would bring back all of the doubts and insecurities that she had been hiding from herself since she had gotten the phone call earlier that night, "I mean... we didn't really talk about it before. I was too shocked to really think about it all but... everything is going to change."

She made the mistake of looking up from her tea to find him staring straight into her eyes. It felt like forever since she had looked into his eyes. The last time had been that week after Beth was born, after she had broken his heart. The heart break that she had seen then had faded almost completely from his eyes since, but she was surprised to still see some evidence of it there. She could tell that he was terrified too- she was pretty sure that that was all about what they were about to do- but she also sensed a darkness that hadn't been there back before Beth had been born. She wondered what that was all about, but she didn't think about it too hard because she was sure that she didn't want to know- she felt guilty enough as it was about everything that had happened without knowing that she had caused some more pain and darkness in his life.

"I'm terrified," she admitted, whilst still under the power of his gaze, "I... I don't know how to be a good mother. I have babysat quite a lot, but never kids as young as Beth is and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to screw it all up. We're probably not going to be good parents and I'm terrified that Beth is going to be screwed up because of it." He jumped down off the bench at her words and before she knew it, he was standing right in front of her, only a handful of space between them. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her firmly in the eye.

"Look, I know I'm probably going to screw up like a billion times, and that maybe you'll make a couple of mistakes too, but the way I see it is, as long as we love her, Beth will be fine. I mean, look at you. Your parents are pretty fucked up, and yet you survived fine. As long as we support her no matter what and make sure we _never_ abandon her, we'll be better than your parents are and therefore she'll turn out fine. I know that your mum is pretty good now, too, and Ma seems to have done a complete 180 on the whole baby issue, so they'll be there too. Beth will be fine. I'm not going to lie and say we're not going to screw up, but I'm sure that we'll get through it, right?" she had to admit that he had a good point. He had started his speech sounding pretty confident, but by the end he didn't sound as certain as she knew he was trying to be. Still, she appreciated the effort.

"How can you be so sure about all of this?" she couldn't stop herself from asking, even though she knew that he wasn't. He laughed and let go of her shoulders, stepping back. She immediately missed the closeness and wished he hadn't moved away.

"I'm shitting myself about all of this," he admitted once he had managed to get his laughter under control, "But I think of how much I miss her and love her and then I think of how awesome we both are even though our parents wouldn't win 'parents of the year' awards and I think... well, we can surely be better than that, right? So it's easy... I just want this too much to be negative about it." He laughed again, as though he found something in what he had just said incredibly amusing, but she had no idea what that was about. She settled on rolling her eyes before finishing off her tea.

"You do know that you're going to have to stop swearing so much, right? I do _not_ want our daughter's first word to be something she can't say in public," she teased, feeling like they had spent too long talking about their real feelings and she didn't want to say anything more because she had a feeling that if she did, she would cry and even though she thought it might be good to get all of that out of her system, she wasn't sure that he was the right person to do that with (despite her heart telling her that he was). He stopped laughing and she could feel his eyes studying her as she turned to put her mug into the dishwasher.

"I don't swear around Sarah, so I'm sure it'll be right," he said seriously, "But you know... aren't you annoyed that your whole life is about to change? I mean I know that you want Beth back and that you miss her and all... but I thought that you wanted to concentrate on yourself for a while. I know things didn't work out for you this year- you can deny it all you want but I know that you wanted to ruin Nationals for a while- so aren't you pissed that you won't be able to find yourself properly this year?" Damn him. She wished he would just let it all go.

"Concentrating on me didn't really work out last year, so why would that change this year?" she sighed as she turned back around to face him, "I had a whole year to sort everything out and I still failed at that. I mean... I rejoined the Cheerios and made head cheerleader and dated Sam and Finn and got rejected by both of them and I couldn't even manage to beat _Kurt_ for Prom Queen... so what's the use of wasting more time trying to find myself? I mean, really, I'm not a Cheerio anymore and I don't have a boyfriend and I'm not even all that popular anymore- I lost all of that whilst not having Beth, so I doubt that having Beth here will make any of that worse."

Wow. She hadn't meant to spill all of that. In fact, she wasn't even sure where most of the words came from- they just poured out of her mouth. She believed them, but she hadn't known that she had felt that way until she heard them out loud. She put a hand over her mouth, just in case some more things wanted to unexpectedly fly out. Puck looked a little bewildered by the reaction his question had garnered.

"Uh..." he said, looking very uncomfortable, "I'm pretty sure that half of the stuff you said in there was just plain stupid, but I guess you have a point in that having Beth here won't make anything worse. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it'll make everything better. But if it helps, in the last year I've been to juvie, gotten called a _nerd_ by a couple of geeks and... Well, it's been a pretty shit year for me too." He looked a little shifty at the end of his speech and she had a feeling that he was keeping something from her. She would have asked him more questions to try and find out what it was, but she was feeling too drained to pry.

"How're we going to do this?" she asked instead, the exhaustion making it too hard for her to keep pretending. She moved over to the dinner table and sank down into one of the chairs. He followed her and nabbed the chair opposite her.

"Well... like we said before, we'll have to take it one day at a time. Summer will be easy- we'll both be around most of the time- although I do still have some bookings for pool cleanings- and we'll be able to work out some sort of schedule. We'll have it figured out by the time school gets back," she wished that he didn't sound so uncertain about it all.

"I know that my mother and your mother said that they would help but... I just feel so guilty, you know? They shouldn't have to deal with all of this. I mean, it's going to be pretty expensive and I don't even have a job and I should because then I can help pay for everything, but I'm not going to have time and... it just shouldn't be their problem," now that they were talking about all of the issues that were going to crop up, she couldn't stop. The excitement was fading away rapidly as the real issues started to become clear in her mind. Maybe they had made the decision too quickly- how were they going to handle raising a kid? What had she been thinking when she had agreed to this?

"Well, I have a job and we can use that money to pay them back," Puck suggested, starting to look as stressed as she felt, "And... at the end of the school year I was talking to Kurt's dad and he mentioned that he was looking for someone our age to work nights at his garage, as a kind of apprentice. He said he had asked Finn, but Finn's kind of useless at these kinds of things, and since he got back with Rachel he is spending all of his time with her and... Well, Burt asked me if I wanted to do it. This apprenticeship thing I mean. I told him I would think about it, but I'm going to take it. It'll be a bit more money so we can help out with costs and since its Kurt's dad, he'll be pretty cool with everything that's going on."

She hadn't expected him to say anything like that. She had heard Kurt briefly mention that his dad wanted an apprentice, but she honestly hadn't been listening so she didn't really know anything about it. If Puck could work at the garage and earn some money, it wouldn't seem so bad. But still, she wasn't going to be contributing to that in any way, and since she and Puck weren't together (and it was still up-in-the-air as to what their relationship actually was) she felt guilty.

"That sounds great, but are you sure that you'll be able to handle all of that?" he was already in glee and the football team and balancing school work, Beth and a job on top of all of that... it sounded like a lot. He just shrugged.

"Well, I can always drop football. We won the championship last year, so I figure that it won't matter if I drop it. It's not going to be in my future, so if everything gets to be too much, I can do without it," he tried to make it sound like he didn't care, but she knew that he loved being on the team. He didn't necessarily love it because of the football aspect, but she knew he loved being able to have some time with the guys, and it also boosted his popularity. It meant a lot that he was willing to give it up.

"Thank you," she told him softly, not really wanting to make a big deal out of it because he didn't seem to want to, but needing to let him know she appreciated everything he was doing, "I mean... I only have glee outside of school so I'm probably not going to have to give anything up and so it's really unfair for you to have to, so I appreciate that you're offering." It was pretty dark in the dining room- she hadn't bothered to flip on the light so the only light came from the doorway into the kitchen- but she thought she could see a hint of a blush on his cheeks. She ignored it, knowing he would hate it if she mentioned it.

"You're giving up plenty," he argued after a short pause- she assumed he was trying to pull himself together, "I mean, Beth's going to be living here. I want to help out as much as I can, but if I'm working after school and weekends... you're going to be looking after her most of the time and from what I remember from when Sarah was little, that takes a lot of work. I'm going to be here as much as I can, but a lot of it will be up to you I guess." He sounded almost disappointed by that, as though he felt that he wasn't going to be doing enough for his daughter. She impulsively reached out and squeezed his hand, quickly dropping it once she realised what she had done.

"Hey, we'll both be there for her, okay? Just because you won't be spending as much time with her as I will, it doesn't mean that she's going to love you less," she was pretty sure that was what he was worried about, and she wanted to say something quickly to take his attention away from what she had just done. He looked a little embarrassed, but shrugged it off.

"I should probably go and let you get some sleep," he said after a quick glance down at his watch, "But we'll come around at eight so we can go get all the baby stuff we need, right?" She ignored the disappointment she felt at his words. She didn't want him to leave, but she didn't really have a good reason for him to stay (none that she would let herself think about anyway, and besides, he had a girlfriend who she was sure was not going to be happy with all of this). She felt better after their conversation and she was convinced that she would be able to sleep for a few hours now.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. I'll see you then," she led him to the front door and waited until she heard his truck move away before allowing herself to go upstairs to bed. As she climbed under the sheets she smiled as she realised that it was less than five hours till she would see him again, and less than eight till she would have her daughter back. She fell asleep in less than ten minutes.

* * *

><p>Rachel Berry knew that most of her peers would be taking advantage of the summer holidays to sleep in and spend most of the day lounging around in bed. Rachel was not like most of her peers however. She had a goal- she was going to be a Broadway Star- and that meant that she had to keep up a rigorous practice routine during the holidays. That is why she found herself smiling as her alarm woke her up at the bright and early time of 6:30A.M. She would be lying if she said that she bounced enthusiastically out of bed, but she had made the goal of getting to Broadway and she wasn't about to let a little sleepiness get in her way. She had a goal and if she wanted to achieve it, she was going to have to make sacrifices.<p>

Her original plan for the summer had allowed for her to sleep till eight, but that had been before she had gotten back with Finn. Since she wanted to spend time with her boyfriend these holidays, she had had no other choice but to sacrifice the extra hours of sleep. So far she was happy with the compromise. She would rather get to spend time with Finn than sleep.

She went through her exercise routine before having a shower and getting ready for the day, all while thinking about her plans for the night with Finn. He was going to pick her up at seven, but other than that she had no idea what he had planned. She had tried to get the information out of him- he was usually very easy to trick into telling- but he had admitted that Kurt had made most of the plans for him because he wanted it to be a surprise and he knew how easily he spoilt surprises. She was actually impressed that he had come up with this plan to ensure that their destination was a secret, but at the same time she worried that Kurt was going to plan something elaborate that would backfire. She hoped that Kurt would consult with Blaine before he booked anything, because his boyfriend was usually more level-headed and practical than he tended to be.

"Rachel, are you awake?" her Dad hollered up the stairs to her room. He sounded nervous, which was never a good sign. And the fact that he wasn't yet on his way to work... she checked the time again to see that it was almost eight. Her Dad always left for work at seven thirty. Her Daddy (it was easier to refer to them as Dad and Daddy than to call them by their first names, because that would just be weird... they were her parents) left just after eight. She frowned and finished off a last brush of her hair before leaving her room.

"What's going on?" she demanded to know as she walked downstairs to find both of her dads sitting on the couch in the living room. Her dads exchanged troubled glances before Leon (Daddy) gestured for her to sit in the armchair across from them. She did so, but only after giving them a long, suspicious look. She hoped that they weren't going to try to talk her out of dating Finn again. They liked Finn well enough- they just didn't like the idea of her dating.

The last time they had tried to talk her out of dating, she had had to spend forty-five minutes pleading her case. They had shown her a DVD about the various ways relationships could go wrong (it was really weird and disturbing) and had gone on and on about teen pregnancy and abusive relationships and how she was their little girl and they didn't want anything happening to her. She had argued with them and finally had had to threaten to move out if they didn't trust her enough to be in a relationship. They hadn't brought it up since, but she didn't know any other reason why they would want to talk to her like this.

"Honey, we know that last year you met your birth mother and that it didn't go very well," Steve (her Dad) began. The topic completely confused her. What did Shelby have to do with anything? As far as she knew, Shelby was off somewhere with her new daughter, too busy replacing the part of her heart Rachel had supposedly stolen to have anything to do with Rachel's life at all.

"You mean to say that Shelby decided that I wasn't good enough to fit into her life and so she replaced me with a younger model," she corrected. So maybe she was still a bit bitter about the situation, but who could blame her? She had been replaced by a baby who biologically belonged to a guy who was sort-of a friend and a girl who used to torment her at any chance she could get. She felt her good mood fade away as her anger at her birth mother came to the front of her mind.

"Rachel we know that it felt like she abandoned you and I know that it hurt but... we have to tell you. We got a phone call early this morning from Shelby's lawyer. She was in a car accident yesterday and she died. Shelby's dead," Leon told her gently. The anger that had been coming back doubled. Shelby was dead.

"How convenient for her," Rachel said aloud, not really talking to her dads, but needing to get the words out, "She never has to talk to me again now. She found a baby to replace me and now that she got her wish of having a baby girl, she gets to go and die so she never has to face her actual daughter ever again!" She knew, deep down, that she was being irrational, but anger was easier to deal with than hurt or grief and so she went with it.

"Rachel," Steve sounded very disappointed in her reaction, which instantly made her anger fade. She hated upsetting her dads in any way. She looked down at the floor and felt her eyes well with tears- more at the chastisement from her Dad than from real grief about Shelby if she was honest- but the tears were still there, "I know that you were angry with Shelby and that you wanted to talk to her again at some point, but unfortunately the world doesn't always work the way we want. Shelby did care about you and she did plan on seeing you again- her lawyer made it clear that she has left many things for you and you alone- family heirlooms that she had and some money. She loved you Rachel. She just didn't know how to show it because it had been so long since she had been able to see you."

She didn't know what to say to that. She wanted to argue that they were wrong, that Shelby couldn't possibly have loved her because she had abandoned her yet again, but they wouldn't understand. So what if the woman had left her some family possessions? Possessions didn't mean love- she had learnt that from Quinn. The ex-Cheerio's parents were rich and had bought her everything that she had wanted, and yet they had still thrown her to the curb like trash when she had done something that they didn't like. So yeah, possessions meant absolutely nothing as far as Rachel was concerned, especially when they were given after death.

She knew that her dads wouldn't appreciate being told that they wouldn't understand, so she said nothing about that. Shelby had been a sore topic for all three of them ever since the vocal coach had revealed her identity to her. Her dads had not been happy to hear that she had contacted her, and they had been hurt that she had felt the need to search for her biological mother. No matter how many times she had explained to them that she loved them both more than anything, they had been upset that they hadn't provided enough love and attention, or some absurd idea like that. Since her dads obviously did not like talking about Shelby, they just hadn't talked about her since she had left. That meant that they didn't have a clue how she really felt about the issue.

"Well, I survived sixteen years without hearing from her, I'm sure that I'll survive the rest of my life without her," she stood up quickly and wiped her eyes, hoping her dads wouldn't noticed the tears, "I think I'll just grab some fruit for breakfast and eat it in my room." Her dads didn't look too happy with this, but they didn't object. As she went to the kitchen to get her breakfast, they had a quiet discussion on the couch.

"Rachel, we still have to go into work today, but if you want one of us to stay home with you and help you deal with this, we can do that," Steve told her quietly as she was about to leave the kitchen. She shook her head slowly, turning the apple she had grabbed in her hands.

"I'll be okay," she assured them, just wanting them to leave her alone. It wasn't that she was angry at them or that she didn't _want_ to talk to them about this, but they would just feel hurt and upset by the things she had to say- she knew they would. They were wonderful parents and she felt really lucky to have them, but sometimes she just wished that she had a mother so that she had someone who could give her a female view on everything. As wonderful as her dads were, that was the one thing they could never give her and even though Shelby hadn't been around, just knowing that she existed...

"Are you sure? I have saved up a heap of sick days and I wouldn't mind using one of them up for this if you want," Leon added, watching her closely as if trying to detect if she was lying or not. She managed a weak smile.

"I'm sure. Please, go to work and don't worry, I'll be fine. I have your work and mobile numbers and I promise that I will call you if I need you," her dads still didn't look convinced, but they stopped arguing with her. She kissed them both on the cheek before heading up to her room and closing the door. She dropped onto her bed and took a bite into her apple before throwing it in the bin. She didn't really feel like eating.

She curled up into a ball and tried to get her mind to stop thinking about Shelby. The woman had only been in her life for a few weeks really- they hadn't contacted each other since she had left with Beth- so she really shouldn't feel so upset about all of this. She was supposed to be angry at her for abandoning her. Didn't that mean that she was supposed to be happy that the woman had died? Did that make her a bad person? Why did she care so much about all of this? She was supposed to be sticking to her rehearsal schedule, not worrying about a dead woman who was little more than an acquaintance (but who was so much more at the same time). Before she could dwell on this anymore, her hand found wrapped around her phone and she was dialling before she really registered what she was doing.

"_Hello?"_ her boyfriend's sleepy voice instantly calmed her down. She knew that he probably didn't appreciate being woken up so early in the morning, but she needed him.

"Can you come over? I was just told some bad news and I think that spending time with you would be really beneficial for my mental state right now," there was a weird shuffling sound on the other end of the phone and she worried for a moment that he had fallen back asleep and dropped his phone or something.

"_Uh... sorry, I'm still half asleep. You want me to come over?"_ at least he had heard that part, which she supposed was the most important bit. She felt a little guilty for waking him, but it was his job as her boyfriend to be available any time she was in emotional turmoil. She would make it up to him later.

"Yes, please. Text me when you get here," he murmured something that sounded like agreement before hanging up. She felt a lot better now that she knew he was coming. As she waited for her boyfriend to arrive, she flipped through her music collection. After she had talked to Finn about everything, maybe they could start to practice a duet for glee. After all, this was rehearsal time she was wasting. With that thought in mind, she put all of her energy into finding the perfect duet. Finn would help her with everything else, but music was her thing and she wasn't going to allow Shelby's death to interfere with that.

* * *

><p>When Puck stepped into the baby section of the department store with Quinn and his mother, he instantly felt out of place and out of his depth. There was baby stuff <em>everywhere<em> and most of the stuff he had never seen before. He felt more than a little overwhelmed by it all. It really wasn't helping his confidence.

"Do babies really need all of this stuff?" Quinn muttered to him quietly so his mother wouldn't hear, "I mean I have no idea what half of this is. I thought all they needed was a car seat, a crib, a highchair, a diaper table and a stroller?" He was really glad that he wasn't the only one struggling with all of this.

"I did see a toddler with an iPad the other day. The world is getting fucked up," he muttered back, feeling a little more at ease. His mother had woken him at six thirty that morning, claiming that they needed to make a start on writing a list of all of the things they would need. He hadn't been much help with the list- firstly because he had only had three hours sleep and secondly because he had absolutely no idea what one year olds needed. He knew about the basics, of course, but the specifics were beyond him.

"Alright, so I guess the most important thing to get right now would be the car seat, because if we can't decide on what else to get, at least we can still go pick her up at eleven and then bring her back here for the rest of it," his mother announced, the trusty list in her hands.

"That sounds like a good idea," Quinn immediately agreed with her, shooting Puck a quick glance that he couldn't quite decipher. He thought that it looked a lot like panic, but he really wasn't sure. The lack of sleep the night before was catching up with him a little, and his nerves were shot to all hell about picking up Beth, so he wasn't on the ball.

His mother led them to the car seat section before instructing them on what they were looking for- he had had no idea that there were different safety labels on the car seats, as well as there being different kinds of seats for different ages. He had just assumed that any car seat would do, but after his mother explained the things that could go wrong if they got the wrong one, he made sure that he checked the boxes of each seat carefully.

Once they found a car seat, they repeated the process with the other various major items they needed- after the car seat they found a stroller, then a crib and then a highchair and a playpen and a changing table and a few other things that his mother claimed were "essential" but he really had no idea about. He could guess what things were for- for example the tub seat was obviously something that you used in the bath, but other things just baffled him.

"Alright, we'd better get going around now I think. Are you guys ready to pick up my granddaughter?" May asked them after checking her watch. Quinn looked a little paler than she had a few seconds ago and he hoped that he didn't look as nervous as she did- she looked ready to pass out.

"Don't they say that no one is ready to be a parent?" he asked his mother in an attempt to both lighten the nerves and to get some reassurance that he was allowed to feel so unconfident. It wasn't as though he wasn't looking forward to seeing Beth, or that he didn't want to raise her and have her as a part of his family. It was like he had told Quinn the night before: he was sure that he was going to screw it all up somehow.

Yes, he did have a plan to get a job and he was planning on spending all of his free time with Beth, but it was going to be hard, and despite all of his best intentions he knew that he was going to do something wrong- it always happened. So no, he didn't really feel ready to pick up Beth, but he knew that if they didn't take her now, they would never see her again and he felt even less ready for that possibility.

"You'll figure it out," May told him with a small smile. It was amazing how supportive she was being now. He guessed that he had really scared her with his depression and going to juvie. She seemed willing to do anything to make him feel happy, and he knew that he would never be able to repay her for all of this. She was already a single parent of two, and by adding Beth into the mix, she was now going to spend a lot of her free time babysitting. She only had two days off a week. Luckily for Puck and Quinn, her days off were Wednesday and Thursday, so she would be able to babysit Beth on those days. The other three days of the week during school they would have to hire a sitter or take Beth to a day care.

Once they managed to fit all of the stuff into the car, they quickly dropped it all off at Quinn's house before heading off to the welfare office, where they were going to meet with the social workers and collect Beth. He felt like the whole process was really weird- almost as if Beth was some sort of package that they were collecting from a post office- and it made him feel really uncomfortable. He was glad that they were able to take Beth because he wasn't sure that he could stomach the idea of her being sent around the foster care system like a game of pass the parcel.

"Hi, can I help you?" the secretary enquired as they entered the office. Puck automatically reached down and grabbed Quinn's hand, suddenly feeling that he needed her support. He was surprised when she squeezed his hand back, not letting go like she had last night. He knew that the gesture was purely platonic- but he couldn't help but feel better whenever her hand was in his. He hoped that she could draw some strength from it too.

"Hi, my name is Quinn Fabray. I'm here to pick up my daughter Beth. We have an appointment with Andrew," her voice was a little shaky, but she managed to pull off a perfect smile. Her colour had gotten a lot better too and overall she looked confident. He knew that her confident exterior was just a mask though- her hand was trembling. She was still terrified, but she had had a lot of practice at hiding it and that practice was paying off here.

"One moment," the secretary looked down at her computer and typed in a few words. A few seconds later, her computer beeped and she gestured to a row of chairs lined up against the wall, "Please take a seat. Andrew will be with you in a few moments." They followed her instructions. Puck saw May raise an eyebrow at their clasped hands, but she didn't comment. He was grateful for that- he knew Quinn wouldn't appreciate anything that hinted that they were a couple.

"All of this waiting is driving me nuts," he said after a few beats of silence had passed. Patience really wasn't his strong suit, and the longer they had to wait, the harder it was to breathe.

"Me too," Quinn admitted, running her free hand through her hair. It was obvious to him when he looked at her that she had taken a while to decide what to wear today. She had reverted back to the style of clothes she had worn when she was pregnant with Beth- a cute navy dress (although he would deny to his grave that he had called any piece of clothing 'cute'), a thin red jacket and red flats. He vaguely remembered seeing her wear the outfit before, and he had thought then that she looked gorgeous in it. Now he was convinced that she had never looked more beautiful.

He quickly stopped his thoughts in their tracks. Now was definitely not the time to be thinking of Quinn as anything more than a friend that he happened to have a kid with. They had more important things to think about than their love lives (although really, that wasn't going to stop him from thinking about it and he knew it... it was just something he had accepted and moved on).

"Patience is a virtue," his mother quipped with a small smile. Sometimes he was convinced that his mother was evil- she knew that he hated that saying, and yet she said it whenever he complained about waiting. He was about to come back with some sort of comment (that probably would have been rude) when a tall, thin man approached them. He had thick black glasses and short black hair. He looked very jumpy and (the first word that jumped into Puck's head) geeky.

"Quinn?" he asked hesitantly, directing the question halfway between his mother and Quinn. Quinn nodded and raised her unoccupied hand, almost as if she was in class.

"Hi, I'm Quinn," if the man was surprised that he was about to give a one-year old to a seventeen year old, he didn't show it.

"Ah yes, I'm Andrew. If you all would follow me, I'll take you to my office where we can get everything started. Once we've gotten all of the paperwork out of the way then we'll get Beth and you can take her home," they followed him through a door, down a hallway and through a room that contained ten or twelve desks, all piled high with paperwork. Several tired-looking employees were on the phone and another few were busy filling out papers. All of them looked as though they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. Puck shuddered and felt glad that he was never going to work in this kind of job. It was way too depressing.

Andrew led them into a small office that was also crammed with papers. Children's drawings hung everywhere around the room, bright coloured rainbows and gloomy night skies- pretty much every surface of the room was covered in paper of some kind. Despite that, the desk actually looked pretty organised and there were enough chairs for everyone to sit comfortably.

"Okay, firstly I would like to say that I'm sorry about the circumstances that have brought you here. From what I can tell, Shelby was doing a very good job of looking after Beth and I know that you trusted her completely in the care of your child," Quinn nodded politely at that statement, and Puck found himself copying her. Andrew then went on to state something about the laws that allowed them to have Beth back, and a whole lot of other legal bullshit that Puck didn't really listen to. He just signed on the lines they told him to sign and, since his mother didn't object, guessed that he had done the right thing.

"Can we see Beth now?" Quinn finally asked after an hour of dealing with all of the legalities. Puck was glad that the social worker was being really careful about who Beth was allowed to leave with- it wouldn't be good if they just signed kids over to anyone who rocked up- but this was getting ridiculous. He was Beth's father and he just wanted to see his daughter. Andrew shuffled the last set of papers they had been through, before looking up and smiling.

"That was the last of the paperwork. I'll just go and get her and then you're free to leave with her. I'll just be a moment," he disappeared out of the door with the paperwork and a tense silence fell over the room. He wanted to say something, but he had no idea what he could say. They were about to see their daughter again for the first time in over a year and he felt on the verge of shitting himself.

It felt like eternity before Andrew came back into the room, but he knew it had to have been less than five minutes. All thoughts of how long it had been flew straight out of his mind, however, as soon as he saw his baby girl.

She was gorgeous- that was his first thought. Her hair was short and a very soft brown- he felt a little disappointed that she hadn't inherited Quinn's blonde locks, but that faded when he got a better look at her face. She looked like a miniature version of Quinn- her nose, the shape of her chin, hell, even her _eyebrows_ were shaped exactly like Quinn's. Beth's eyes were amazing too- he couldn't quite decide if they were hazel or green, but they were large and he knew that as she grew older, every single emotion she ever had would be revealed by them. She was dressed in a really cute navy blue dress, with white socks, but no shoes. He chuckled as he realised that her dress matched Quinn's- maybe they had some sort of mysterious mother-daughter telepathic link or something.

Andrew was talking, but he honestly didn't hear a word- he was too entranced by his daughter. After a few moments he risked a quick glance at Quinn. There were tears in her eyes and she was looking at Beth with such a wondrous expression that he almost couldn't look away. These two girls were his world and he made a promise then and there that he would do anything to protect them.

"Hey baby girl," Quinn cooed as Andrew handed the one year old over to her. Beth looked at her curiously, before reaching out with one hand and rubbing Quinn's nose. Quinn laughed, her eyes still full of tears, as she precariously balanced Beth on her knee. She moved one hand so that it was behind Beth's back so the little girl couldn't fall backwards (Quinn was still seated) and gently held Beth's shoulder with her other hand to make sure she stayed in place. Puck tried to remember where she put her hands so he could do the same when he got his chance to hold her.

"I'll let you guys get to know each other. You're free to leave anytime you want, but I'll be back here in about ten minutes," Andrew sounded a little awkward as he left them- he obviously felt as though he was intruding on their family time, even though they were stealing his office.

"Hi Beth, I'm your Mummy," Quinn obviously hadn't heard Andrew or didn't care because she was so entranced by her daughter. Beth continued to stare at her curiously, her chubby little hand exploring Quinn's face. She really seemed to like Quinn's nose- she kept on grabbing at it and looked amazed when it wouldn't come off her face. A bright flash caught his attention and he saw that his mother had taken out her camera, intent on capturing this moment.

Puck was getting a bit impatient- he wanted to talk to Beth too- but he knew that it was important that Quinn got her time too. So he sat back and watched for a little while as Quinn cooed at Beth and Beth continued to explore Quinn. Finally the infant noticed that Quinn wasn't the only person in the room. His chair was close enough that Beth could almost reach out and touch his arm. Once she got bored of Quinn, she moved her arm out to try and get him.

"You want to hold her?" Quinn asked him. It was really more of a rhetorical question, since she knew the answer was going to be yes, so she was already handing Beth over as she finished speaking. He held his breath as the little girl was transferred between the two chairs, scared that he was going to drop her, but within a couple of seconds, Beth had moved from Quinn's lap to his. He copied the hold he had seen Quinn use- one hand at her back and the other on her shoulder, and finally let himself breathe again.

Beth tilted her head to one side a little as she looked at him, as though making a judgement about whether or not she liked him. It was very unnerving and he had to force himself not to shift uncomfortably as he felt her gaze penetrate his soul.

"Hey Beth, I'm your Dad," he said when he finally felt that he could talk without crying or some girly shit like that, "You know, I told your mummy that you were awesome, but I don't think she believed me until just now." Beth blinked and a second later a big smile spread across her face. He laughed in surprise and she reached out to grab his nose, just like she had with Quinn. He knew that he had tears in his eyes, but he didn't care. His baby girl liked him and that was all that mattered.

"Alright guys, we probably should let Andrew have his office back," his mother's voice brought him back to reality as he realised that he couldn't just sit there with Beth all day. Quinn stood and held her arms out as if questioning if she could take her.

"Ah yeah, sure, go ahead," he was a little relieved that he wouldn't have to carry Beth. As much as he wanted to hold his daughter and never let her go, he kind of wanted to see how other people carried her first to make sure that he would do it right. He didn't want to try winging something this important.

"Do you want to hold her May?" Quinn suddenly asked, as if it had just occurred to her that the older woman was in the room and had yet to meet her granddaughter. May smiled warmly at her, but shook her head.

"I think that you and Noah need to do this. I can meet her properly when we get back to your house," Quinn's smile deepened and she quickly and efficiently picked Beth up from Puck's lap. Andrew had also brought in a bag full of Beth's possessions and Puck made sure that he grabbed that on the way out of the room. He had a quick look through it on the way to the car- there were a few dresses and a couple of toys and a purple teddy bear that looked really familiar.

"Hey, isn't this the bear we gave to Shelby to take with her?" he asked Quinn, showing her the said bear on the way to the car. She glanced at it quickly before returning her gaze to Beth (she hadn't stopped looking at her since she had first entered Andrew's office).

"Yeah, I guess Shelby must have given it to her. It certainly looks like it has been loved," she was right. One of the bear's ears looked as though it had been chewed on a lot, and there was a bald patch on one of the bear's arms. He felt a wave of gratitude towards Shelby, not only for looking after Beth so well for the first year of her life, but also for trying to keep Puck and Quinn in Beth's life, even if it had just been through a teddy bear. He was sad that he would never be able to thank her in person.

When they got to the car Puck quickly put Beth's things in the back before coming around to help get Beth into the car seat. May was happy to give them verbal instructions on getting Beth settled, but she told them that it was something they would have to do for themselves, so she wouldn't help them by physically doing it. Puck would have been happy with that if only Beth hadn't started to fuss the moment she realised what they were doing. She started crying when she saw the car seat and she clung to Quinn desperately. Quinn herself didn't seem to be doing too well with Beth's tears- she didn't stop attempting to get Beth in the chair, but she couldn't look their daughter in the eye either. Finally, after a ten minute struggle, Puck managed to figure out how the straps on the seat worked and Beth was safely strapped in. May leant in and checked that everything was okay.

"Well done guys. I know that you probably felt like that went on forever, but really a lot of babies and infants hate these seats and for a first time, you didn't do too badly. It'll be easier next time, I promise. You know how the seat works now and even though Beth will probably still scream and cry, it'll be better," she assured them as she climbed into the car. Quinn didn't look so sure as she climbed in next to Beth.

"I already hate it when she cries and that was just over a car seat. What am I going to do when something's actually wrong?" she asked as everyone else got settled in for the drive. May shrugged.

"You'll do what you need to do to make everything better," she told the teenager calmly, "I still remember the first time Noah was sick. He was only a couple of months old and he just wouldn't stop crying. I felt like the worst mother in the world, but I picked him up and as soon as I felt his temperature I knew something was wrong. So I took him to the doctor and everything was fine after a couple of days. Those two days were hellish because Noah wouldn't stop crying and he was sick and I was worried, but everything turned out okay. You'll be fine Quinn. You obviously care about Beth and that is all that matters."

Puck was silent during the drive and he wasn't really listening to the conversation between his mother and Quinn either. He had to concentrate on driving. Now that he had his daughter in the back seat, he was suddenly an extremely cautious driver. He would never be able to forgive himself if he did something wrong and they crashed while Beth was in the car.

Beth calmed down after a couple of minutes being in the seat and started making a happy cooing noise. She definitely had a split personality- how could she go from being so upset to happily cooing? It was almost as if she was singing along to the engine of the car. Knowing that Berry's love of singing had seemed to be genetic- Shelby _had_ been Vocal Adrenaline's coach after all- Shelby had probably been trying to teach Beth to sing since the moment she met her. He made a mental note to take his guitar over to Quinn's so he could play to her and test out his theory.

Luckily it was the middle of the day, so traffic was pretty good and they made it back to the Fabray residence without too much hassle. He quietly sighed in relief when he switched off the engine and hoped that no one heard. He was pretty sure they had already seen the tears that had been in his eyes before when he had seen Beth- he so didn't need them to know how relieved he was to have made it back to Quinn's place safely.

"Hey look, we're home," Quinn cooed to their little girl as she unhooked her from the car seat, "I know it's not the home you're used to, but you'll love it, I know you will. You have your own room and we have everything that you need." Quinn continued to talk softly to Beth as they moved away from the car and into the house. The little girl didn't seem to notice that she wasn't staying somewhere she normally did. She was again entranced by Quinn's face, one of her hands playing with Quinn's nose and the other reaching out to pull on Quinn's blonde locks.

Puck almost tripped over on the path to the front door because he was too busy staring at his daughter to really concentrate on where he was going. He stuck close to Quinn's side, not wanting to move too far away from Beth, and when he realised that Beth was actually pulling quite hard on her mother's hair, he reached out and took her chubby little hand.

"Now Beth, you're only supposed to pull someone's hair if they have you pinned on the ground. You have a pretty good technique, but you're not supposed to use it on people you actually like," he told the girl seriously. Beth stared at him for a moment, as though taking in his words, before smiling and babbling something unintelligible. Quinn rolled her eyes.

"You're seriously telling your one-year old daughter how to fight?" she asked. He shrugged.

"Hey, the girl's a natural and it's never too early to learn how to defend yourself," he said defensively, putting his hands up in surrender. Quinn sighed and muttered something under her breath. It sounded suspiciously like 'At least she doesn't have a Mohawk.'

"Alright we need to get to work baby-proofing this place," May announced as she surveyed the living room they had stopped in, "And we really need to make sure that all of the furniture gets put together. Beth is going to want to sleep soon, so we really should get that crib put together. Noah, I'll let you be in charge of that. Quinn, you know this house better than I do. We need to find everything breakable or dangerous- like electricity wires- and make sure it is hidden away out of reach. Infants can be very resourceful at times and we need to make sure that Beth can't access anything dangerous."

Puck nodded, really grateful for his mother's help. He had a feeling he and Quinn would have been lost without her help. With that thought in mind he quickly tapped Beth's nose with one of his fingers (a completely instinctual thing- he had no idea why he did it, but she smiled so he guessed it was maybe a dad-thing to do?) before heading up the stairs. They had put all of the furniture in the room that was going to be Beth's before they had picked her up. The furniture was all flat-packed and so he had a lot of building to do. Sighing softly to himself as he realised that all of this was only the beginning, he found the box for the crib and set himself up for an afternoon of building.

* * *

><p>Finn had to admit that he was confused. When he had answered Rachel's phone call earlier that morning, he had known that she was upset. Her voice had trembled as she had asked him to come over, and it was like he could <em>feel<em> the tears that were in her eyes. Even though he had been half-asleep and quite annoyed that his quite pleasant dream (it had been of the two of them at the beach, and Rachel's bathing suit had been... well, pretty much non-existent) had been interrupted, but it had been so obvious that something was wrong that he had quickly gotten over it.

And then he had turned up at her house to find her happily humming away to some Broadway tune he had never heard of. She had pretty much demanded that they practice singing duets and now, three hours later, he was feeling more than a little confused, as well as a bit irritated. He knew that she had called him because she had been upset, but now she was just pretending that everything was okay. He wasn't really an expert at relationships (his poor history of having his girlfriends cheat on him showed that) but he was pretty sure that boyfriends were supposed to listen to their girlfriend's problems and make them feel better. So why wasn't Rachel going on and on about whatever was wrong, like he believed girlfriends were supposed to do, and just talking about how they had to make sure that their chemistry was 'just right' for the duet so they didn't end up doing what they had done at Nationals?

"What's going on with you?" he finally asked after being forced to listen to some duet from some musical (she had told him the name of it several times, but he couldn't remember it for the life of him) for at least the twentieth time. Okay, so maybe he could have phrased the question a bit better, but he had never claimed to be good with words. That was Rachel's department.

"I am just trying to make sure that our voices compliment each other's perfectly, without causing too much conflicting emotions. I wouldn't take back that kiss we shared at Nationals for anything, but we cannot do anything like that next year and so we need to start rehearsing now to ensure that our feelings do not get the best of us whilst we are performing. I've already explained this to you several times Finn," he knew that she knew what he really meant.

She had that expression on her face- the one where she was trying to pretend that she didn't know what someone was talking about, when she clearly did. She thought that she was being devious, but she forgot that he knew how to read her like a book- well, sometimes anyway. That whole thing with her kissing Puck had just been really confusing and then when they did that duet... he shook his head to get his head back on track.

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it. You're upset about something and it's causing you to act all... crazy," she raised an eyebrow at his choice of wording and he quickly tried to backtrack, "I mean... I don't think you're crazy, I think that you're really awesome and pretty and stuff but I know that you're upset and that was why I came over so quickly because I wanted to find out why you are so upset, but when I got here you started going on about duets and... Just tell me what's wrong so everything can go back to normal, please? I know I'm not really good with words and sometimes I get lost in a sentence, but I'm your boyfriend and that means that it is my job to listen when you're upset. So tell me and I'll listen and we'll fix it." He was quite proud of himself for his speech.

"I-I..." Rachel's face suddenly crumpled and before he knew what was going on, she was in his arms, crying her eyes out on his shoulder. He froze for a second in shock. He hadn't expected such a big reaction. He knew that really, he should have known better, because this was Rachel and she never did _anything_ in small doses.

He just rolled with what was going on, still confused, but he wrapped his arms around her and moved them awkwardly over so that he was sitting on her bed with her perched precariously in his lap. They stayed seated like that for what felt like forever, him awkwardly patting her on the back and wishing that someone else was there to help out. He briefly considered calling his step-brother, but Kurt was out with Blaine and he didn't want to disturb them. Finally Rachel looked up from his shoulder and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I'm sorry for waking you up and dragging you over here and then pretending that nothing was wrong even though I am feeling quite upset, but I thought that if I didn't think about it then it wouldn't affect me. But you are right- as my boyfriend it is your duty to listen to my problems and then help me with them and as your girlfriend I will listen to your problems and talk them through. I just am not really used to having someone to talk things through with," Rachel babbled on. Finn got it- she had told him how she tried to protect her dads from worrying about her too much by leaving out the stuff that other kids had done to her at school. She wasn't used to sharing the things that really upset her with people- she could share her anger, frustration and tears when it came to something as simple as not getting a solo, but the real things were harder for her to talk about.

"It's all good," he said quickly to cut off her monologue on how sorry she was, "Just- just tell me what's wrong, okay? I'm not mad at you, I just want to help." She wiped at her eyes again before sitting back, so that she was sitting slightly in front of him on the bed instead of in his lap. He missed her warmth immediately, but had to admit that it was easier for him to concentrate on her words now that his nose wasn't filled with the scent of her shampoo.

"Apparently Shelby- my birth mum- was in a car accident yesterday and died," she poured out in a rush, "I mean... she gives me away when I was born- which I kind of understand because my dads wanted a baby and they were the ones who came up with the contract and I am grateful to her for doing that because I love my dads- but then she abandoned me again at the end of last year. She basically told me that I wasn't the person she expected me to be and so therefore she didn't want to have anything to do with me. She even replaced me with a baby- and not just some random child, but _Beth_, who she knew I knew and so she had to know that I would find out about it! It was like she purposefully came back into my life just to hurt me and replace me and now she's dead so I can't even tell her how much I hate her for what she did." Wow. When she got on a roll, she could really talk fast. He tried to focus on the main issue here.

"I think that that is Shelby's loss, not yours," he managed to say after a few moments of internal struggle. He was no good at comforting girls- sometimes he wished that he had Puck's seemingly natural skills in talking to women, because he was pretty sure that he was doing an awful job of making Rachel feel better, "I mean, you're awesome. I know that I keep on saying that, but that's just 'cause it's true. You're so smart and talented and beautiful and it's her own fault that she couldn't see that. I think that wherever she is now, she is seeing the real you and she is pissed at herself for not realising what a good person you are while she still had the chance to get to know you." Rachel was staring at him with an expression he couldn't decipher. He was a bit freaked out. He must have said the wrong thing or something- there was no way this could end well, right?

"You don't think I'm being irrational by being angry at her?" she asked in a small voice. He blinked. He was finding it hard to keep track of her emotions and how they linked to her words. Girls were plain weird.

"Uh... no?" he had barely gotten the word out of his mouth before her mouth was attacking his. He was too shocked to do anything for a millisecond, but he quickly returned her kiss, all thoughts about what was going on being completely washed from his mind. They spent a few minutes kissing and he had honestly almost completely forgotten what they had been talking about once she finally sat up and straightened herself up. He was a bit disappointed that she had stopped, but he was happy that she was feeling better, and secretly patting himself on the back for sorting out her problem so well.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't resist," she told him with a large smile, "You just looked so adorable trying to puzzle everything out. I know that I barely knew Shelby and I shouldn't be so angry at her, but I guess that when she took Beth that was the last straw. I know that she wanted a little girl that she could mother and play hairdresser with and raise, but I was kind of hoping that she would change her mind and accept me instead. Then she took Beth and I realised that that was never going to happen and I got a bit jealous. Now Shelby is dead and she will never be like a mother to me. I guess it's just a lot to take in." He kind of got it- it was similar in a way to when his mother had started dating Burt. He had felt like she was replacing his dad and that had really hurt. He had struggled with his emotions then too- he had gotten angry at Burt when in reality he was just feeling hurt that he had never met his dad.

He explained this to her and she listened carefully, her hand loosely clasped around his. They talked it through for quite a long time before heading down to the kitchen to make some lunch. It was obvious to him that their talk had made her feel better. He knew that she was probably still upset about the whole Shelby thing and that she would be for a while, but she was smiling and joking a little now- something she hadn't been doing all morning.

"Wait... what about Beth?" Rachel suddenly asked in the middle of their lunch. His mouth was full of vegetables, so he couldn't answer straight away, but she continued on anyway, "Shelby adopted Beth. If Shelby was in an accident, does that mean Beth was too? She's only a baby- if an adult was killed in that accident then she wouldn't have had a chance."

The food in his mouth suddenly tasted like ash. It always hurt a little when Beth was brought up. It didn't happen often- everyone in glee knew that it was a touchy subject- but when it did... it caused his heart to ache a little. He had believed that Beth was his daughter for so long, it was hard to let go. He knew that it was much more painful for Puck and Quinn to talk about her, but still, it hurt him too. Thinking that she might be dead was just too much.

"They would have mentioned that, right? I mean, that lawyer guy would have said that your-adopted sister? - was dead, right?" Rachel's smile had completely disappeared and she dropped her fork onto her plate as though she too felt like her food tasted like ash.

"Well I don't know. Technically I'm not really related to Beth at all. Shelby had signed me away and since she isn't biologically connected to Beth, I'm not sure that they would release that kind of information to me. I sincerely doubt that they would contact Quinn either- she gave Beth up for adoption and so it probably means that she has no legal ties to Beth at all. I suppose if we were to go over and tell Quinn about Shelby, she might be able to find out about Beth seeing as she is the biological mother though?" Rachel didn't sound at all certain about that, but it was better than nothing. If there was a chance that they could find out whether or not the little girl was okay, they had to take it.

"Should we call her?" he asked, unsure what the proper etiquette for these kinds of situations was. Rachel considered for a moment before shaking her head.

"No, we should go over and tell her in person. That way we can make sure that she's okay if the news isn't very good," Rachel reasoned. Finn didn't argue with her. Rachel was better at these kinds of things, and he knew that Quinn would need someone there if the news wasn't all that good. Quinn was good at pretending to be fine (he had seen evidence of it all year) but he knew that she would fall apart if something horrible had happened to Beth.

If he had doubted that Rachel was worried about the situation (which he hadn't) all doubts would have left when she insisted that they leave straight away, without even cleaning up their dishes. Since she was a massive neat freak- not as bad as Quinn, but just barely- he knew that it was bad. He frowned. He had just done such a good job at making her feel better and now here she was, worried again. He hoped like hell that everything was going to turn out okay.

When they arrived at Quinn's house, Rachel squeezed his hand before ringing the doorbell. He tried to smile reassuringly at her, but it felt too fake, so he gave up. It took a while for anyone to answer the door, despite the fact that Quinn's mother's car was in the driveway. He was about to suggest that they try again later when Quinn opened the door. She seemed surprised to see the two of them standing there. The three of them hadn't really had a chance to talk after Nationals and he suspected that Quinn had been avoiding the pair of them before the end of the school term. He hoped that she didn't just slam the door in their faces and walk away, because what they had to say was so much more important than the pettiness that was growing between the two girls.

"Quinn, before you throw us out or something there is something that we need to tell you and it really is important and you really are going to want to know about it, so could we please come in and talk?" Rachel's verbal diarrhoea was back again. He just hoped Quinn had managed to catch it all because the blonde was just staring at the two of them as though not quite sure what to do with them.

"Hey Quinn, I need- hey Finn, Berry- what the-" Puck's head appeared from the top of the stairs. He seemed shocked to see the two of them standing on the doorstep (but probably not as shocked as Finn was to see Puck in Quinn's house). Puck quickly glanced behind him before continuing with what he was saying, "What are you guys doing here?" Finn had had enough confusion for the day. Rachel was looking suspiciously from Quinn to Puck. He hoped she could figure out what was going on, because then she would tell him and he would get it too. Quinn sighed and gestured for them to follow her into the living room. Puck seemed to hesitate for a second- he said something to someone behind him who was hidden from view- before he came down the stairs to join them in the living room.

Finn had never felt so awkward in his life. Firstly, he didn't think that the four of them had ever been alone in a room together. Yes, he had been alone with Puck or with Quinn or with Rachel, and sometimes he had even been alone with Rachel and Puck or Rachel and Quinn, but he was pretty sure it had never just been the four of them.

Secondly, he and Rachel were supposed to be there to give Quinn the news about Shelby and then to try and see if they could find out about Beth. He supposed that since Puck was Beth's father he could be included in that conversation, but at the same time it just felt _weird_. He had been nervous about just telling Quinn- Puck's reaction was going to be explosive and he really didn't want to see his best friend have a melt-down (because despite everything, Puck was still his best friend and that meant a lot).

Thirdly, what the hell was Puck doing in Quinn's house? He had a girlfriend, who was not Quinn, and Finn had hoped that Puck had finally learnt his lesson about cheating and had settled down. He knew that Quinn had feelings for Puck and vice-versa- he may be pretty dumb, but he wasn't blind- but Puck had Lauren and after they had given Beth away it had been pretty clear to everyone that there were some serious issues between the two of them. So it really didn't make sense that Puck was in Quinn's house right now.

"Uh... are the two of you together again now or something?" Rachel asked, her eyes still switching between Puck and Quinn, "Because if you are, I have to say that I expected it to happen at some point soon and I am very happy for the two of you." Quinn looked a little horrified, as though the idea had never occurred to her.

"What? No, it's nothing like that," she denied, although her cheeks turned a little pink. Puck shook his head.

"Geez Berry, way to jump to conclusions," he muttered a little sourly. Finn had a feeling that he wasn't happy with the way Quinn had denied the idea of a relationship so quickly. Something very strange was going on here, "You know, it is possible for me to be at a girl's house without me sleeping with them. You should know that." Finn winced at the reminder of Rachel's revenge on him and Puck gave him a half shrug in apology. Rachel ducked her head in embarrassment.

"Sorry Noah, I guess that I may have jumped to conclusions a little early," she admitted. Quinn snorted, but said nothing.

"It's all good. I know that with everything going on at the moment you're probably not thinking straight. I'm really sorry to hear about your birth mum- Shelby was pretty cool and it sucks that she died," something clicked in Finn's brain at Puck's words.

He looked around the room and realised that part of the strange feeling he had felt the whole time he had been there came from the fact that the _room_ was different. He had spent a lot of time in Quinn's house and so the changes were easy to see, now that he realised they were there. All of her mother's glass statues and plates were now placed neatly on the top shelf of the oak bookcase in the corner of the room, whereas before they had been spread out on the lower shelves and throughout the room. All of the electrical cords for the TV had been gathered together and it looked like someone was in the middle of placing them somewhere hidden. And in the corner, against the wall, were two cardboard boxes that looked like they contained furniture.

"You already know about that?" Rachel was asking, looking both surprised and a little hurt by the revelation. He knew that she had felt a little special for being informed that Shelby had died, and to know that Puck and Quinn also knew was probably denting that feeling. Puck and Quinn exchanged glances, as if realising that Rachel wasn't as informed as they seemed to be.

"Well, yeah. The social worker called last night to let me know because of Beth. Shelby had set it up so that if anything happened to her, I would be notified so I could make the decision about what to do with Beth," Quinn explained a little hesitantly, as if knowing that her words were going to hurt, but needing to say them anyway. She was watching Rachel carefully, as if waiting for the shorter girl to start yelling at her or something.

"They called you to ask you if you wanted to have Beth back," Finn said, everything making sense in his mind. That would explain why Puck was there- Beth was his daughter too and if she was going to be living with Quinn, then that meant that he was going to be at the Fabray house quite a bit.

"Yeah," the blonde admitted, smiling, "So I went and talked to Puck and our mothers and we decided that Beth should come and live here. We actually picked her up this morning. My mother is watching her now." It was a huge relief to hear that the baby girl was okay, but to hear that she was upstairs was a little confronting. A large part of him wanted to see her (he had wondered a bit what she looked like) but he didn't really know if it was a good idea. He knew that she wasn't his daughter and that hurt.

"Can I see her?" Rachel asked eagerly. It was amazing how much of a 180 her mood had just taken- she had been upset a few seconds ago- but the mention of the baby being there had, for some reason, changed all of that. He guessed that it was a girl thing. Girls always turned weird whenever babies were brought into it.

"I'll go see if I can get your mother to part with her for a bit," Puck said to Quinn before heading off to the stairs, "Oh and the crib's almost done so hopefully we'll be able to put her in there when she takes her nap. I just have a couple of pieces to figure out." Quinn nodded, as though all of this was perfectly normal. Finn didn't know how she managed it- everything was screwy as far as he was concerned.

"I'm sorry I didn't call you and let you know about all of this, but it didn't really feel real until about half an hour ago. I just didn't think that this is something you would probably need to know," Quinn's apology was unexpected and further added to Finn's disorientation. The blonde certainly seemed to have changed in the week since he had last seen her. He supposed becoming a mother again, even for such a short time, had already begun to have an effect on her.

"I understand. It must have come as quite a shock to be offered the chance to raise Beth again. I also imagine that it would have been a hard decision to make," Rachel offered. It was nice to see them being nice to each other- it definitely didn't happen very often at school, despite both of them being in glee.

"Not really," Quinn said quietly, twisting the bottom of her jacket around her finger, "I mean... it probably should have been, but I just couldn't give her up again, and Puck had never really wanted to in the first place so it wasn't hard to decide to keep her. It's going to be hard and I'm sure I'm going to hate it at times, but I just couldn't let someone else have her, you know?" Finn thought that it made sense. He had always wanted Quinn to keep her baby anyway, so he was kind of glad that she now had the chance to raise her.

He would have said something, but at that moment Puck appeared, carrying his baby girl. Puck seemed to be concentrating very hard as he came down the stairs and Finn knew that his friend was terrified of dropping her. He would have laughed at the look on his face, but he was too busy holding his breath, nervous that Puck would drop her. They made it down the stairs with no dramas, and soon enough he got a look at the little girl that had almost been his.

The first thing that he noticed was that she was definitely Quinn's daughter. Not only did they have the same facial features, but they were even dressed alike. Beth's hair was a light brown though, and a little curly, and her eyes were closer to the colour of Puck's than Quinn's- for the moment at least. Beth didn't seem to realise that she was the centre of attention. She was happily cooing, with one arm wrapped around the side of Puck's neck and the other waving around happily in the air.

"Wow... she's gorgeous," Rachel gushed, reaching out a hand to softly stroke the girl's cheek. Beth looked at the newest strangers in her life, tilting her head a little. She continued to coo happily, and made a grab for Rachel's hand as the teenager moved her hand away.

"Beth, this is your Aunty Rachel and Uncle Finn," Puck told the girl as she continued to play with Rachel's finger, "Now, remember what I told you before about family? You don't bite family, or pull their hair, remember?" Finn couldn't stop himself from laughing this time. It was just so surreal to see Puck with a baby (despite the fact that Finn had been around when Sarah had been a baby and Puck had looked after his baby sister a lot. Eight year old Puck had been very different from seventeen year old Puck though, so maybe that was why it felt so strange.) Puck just rolled his eyes at Finn's laugh and muttered something under his breath.

"Well, at least we know she's your kid if she's been biting people," Finn joked to his friend.

"That's what she said too," Puck said with a small pout, nodding his head at Quinn, "Here; do you want to hold her? I have to warn you, she seems to have a thing with noses- keeps on grabbing a hold of 'em if it's in reach- but she's generally been good about the biting and hair pulling." Finn was going to protest, but then Beth smiled at him again and he felt all resistance melt away. He had a feeling that Beth was going to break quite a few hearts when she was older (and that Puck was going to break a few guys noses' as a result of that).

Beth was lighter than he expected. He made sure that he copied the way that Puck had been holding her- he would never forgive himself if he dropped her. As Puck had predicted, one of Beth's hands went straight to his nose. He had to force himself to keep still and not bat her hand away- it was rather disturbing to see chubby fingers suddenly appear in front of his eyes.

"Aww... she's so adorable! And it's so cute the way the two of you match," Rachel gestured between Quinn and Beth, but her eyes were glued to the baby. Quinn blushed and Puck looked like he was trying his best not to laugh.

"That was... unintentional. She was dressed like that when we picked her up," Quinn explained, using her hand to smooth her dress. She too was staring at Beth, and he had never seen her look so happy before. He started to feel a little uncomfortable- because everyone was staring at Beth, who was sitting on him, it almost felt as though they were staring at him. As much as he liked holding her, he figured it would be best if he gave her to someone else.

"Hey Puck, did you want some help with putting all the baby stuff together?" he figured that Rachel was going to want to stay and play with Beth for a bit, and maybe talk to Quinn about girl stuff (he just assumed that whenever two girls got together they needed to talk about a heap of stuff) so he thought that he might as well go and be useful. Also, he kind of wanted to talk to Puck about how all of this was going to happen, because Quinn was kind of like a sister to him now (a sister he had once dated... he tried to forget that part) and he wanted to make sure that Puck wasn't going to screw her around. And Puck was like a brother to him, so he needed to make sure that he was going to be alright with everything. He sure was on a roll for helping people today.

"Yeah, that'd be great. I've almost finished with the crib, but there's a heap of other shi-stuff that needs to be put together," Finn carefully passed Beth over to Rachel before standing. Seeing his girlfriend holding a baby did something strange to his heart- made it feel all gooey- and he quickly shook his head to try to fix it. He was only seventeen- it didn't matter how cute Rachel looked with a baby, he had no illusions about giving her one at this stage. Maybe in a few years...

As he and Puck climbed the stairs to Beth's room, he began picturing a future with him, Rachel, a Labrador, New York and a baby that would look exactly like Rachel.

* * *

><p>Rachel barely noticed the boys leaving to go upstairs. As soon as Beth had been placed in her arms, she had fallen in love with the baby girl (okay, so she had fallen for her sooner than that, but it sounded much better in books when they said things like that). Beth had indeed decided to explore her nose, and kept making happy noises that sometimes sounded almost like words. Quinn was smiling at the two of them, looking more real than Rachel had ever seen her look before.<p>

"I admire you," she said before she could change her mind. She had a feeling that Quinn thought that she didn't like her, and it wasn't really true. The only reason Rachel had disliked Quinn had been because she had had Finn, but now that Finn was Rachel's, she had no problem with the ex-Cheerio.

She knew that a lot of people wouldn't be able to forgive Quinn for all of the merciless teasing that she put her through, but Rachel liked to think she was a good person, and good people forgave others for their past mistakes. Quinn had still been mean to her a couple of times since she had joined glee- actually, more than a few times- but Rachel knew that the blonde had been merely covering up the hurt she was feeling over everything that had happened. For some reason Quinn had believed that she had to act like the ice-queen she had been before she had gotten pregnant to make herself feel better and Rachel had understood that to some degree. It hadn't worked, but she had understood.

"Why?" Quinn sounded genuinely startled by the admission, confirming Rachel's beliefs.

"Well, firstly, giving Beth away to Shelby was the right choice. You and Noah have both grown up a lot in the past year and whilst I strongly believe that the two of you can raise her now, I must admit that I doubt you would have been successful if you had kept Beth with you from birth. I have no doubt that Beth would have been fine if you had, but I think that it would have taken a severe toll on you and Noah and so giving her to Shelby was the right choice. I don't think you believe that it was, but I do and you need to give yourself some credit for that," she paused to allow her words to sink in. Quinn hadn't hit her yet or anything, but it was always best to be wary.

"Thank you," the blonde said in the brief pause, "I know Puck hated me for the decision and I kind of hated myself so thank you." Rachel got distracted from what she had been going to say by Quinn's words.

"Okay, this may be none of my business, but Noah never hated you. He was a bit annoyed at the whole situation, but he never _hated_ you," Rachel considered Noah to be one of her closest friends and she knew that he still had very strong feelings for Quinn. She figured it wouldn't hurt to make this distinction clear.

"He did," Quinn argued, her eyes finally tearing away from her daughter to focus on Rachel's, "He would never admit it and he tried to pretend that he didn't, but I could see it. I don't blame him for it either. I wanted to keep her too, right from the start, but I didn't know how. I still don't really know how this is going to work." Rachel desperately wanted to argue with her on the point of Noah's feelings, but knew that it would probably be better if she didn't. She would have a chat with Noah about it at some point however- she was pretty sure the boy knew that Quinn felt this way, but maybe he could straighten her out. She decided to concentrate on the Beth part of the whole issue.

"Well, that's another reason why I admire you. You don't know for sure how this is all going to work out, but you still made the decision that is going to be best for Beth, even though you're going to have to sacrifice so much. I know that this is going to be hard for you to juggle school and Beth and everything, and so if you ever need help, just give me a call. Beth is sort of my adopted sister, or adopted step-sister or something like that anyway, so I'm more than happy to help," Beth nodded at this statement, almost as if she understood what she was saying, and she couldn't stop the chuckle that escaped her, "And look, Beth agrees with me too, isn't that right?" Quinn's eyes looked suspiciously bright with tears, but Rachel didn't say anything.

"You really are a good person Rachel," Quinn finally said after taking a few moments to collect herself, "I know I've been horrible to you in the past and I wish I could say that I had a good reason for it but... I'm sorry for everything I've said and done to you and I hope that from here on out we can be friends. Truce?" Rachel smiled and carefully reached around Beth to shake Quinn's offered hand.

"Truce," she agreed. For the rest of the afternoon she spent a very happy time helping Quinn baby-proof the house. She never would have thought that her day would turn out like this, but despite the tragic circumstances that had brought it about, she was happy that it had.

* * *

><p>Puck was exhausted. He and Finn had spent the majority of the afternoon putting together furniture for Beth- they had finished the crib, the changing table and various other bits and pieces- before Finn and Rachel had left to go on some special date that Kurt had planned for them- or at least that was what Finn had mumbled as he had dragged Rachel out of the door.<p>

After Finn had gone, he had helped Quinn and Judy with the rest of the baby-proofing. Beth had fallen asleep at around three-thirty, luckily about twenty minutes after he had finished the crib- and hadn't awoken until five. That was when the fun had begun. She had a dirty diaper.

Really, he was surprised it had taken her so long for her to need a diaper change. When Quinn had announced that she thought Beth needed changing, the first thing to jump into his mind was that he needed an excuse to get out of there. He so did not want to have to deal with the diaper changes. But he knew that he was going to have to do it sometime, and Judy was staring at him as though she knew what he was thinking and was disappointed, so he made himself stick around.

It was gross. He hadn't realised that a baby could produce so much brown stuff. It had smelt so bad that he had wanted to barf. He sent up another prayer of thanks for his mother's list at the baby store- she had made sure that they had gotten a smell-proof (or whatever they called it) bin for dirty diapers. Judy had shown them the correct way to undo all of the tabs and then how to stick the new diaper together so that it didn't fall off. He tried to memorise the pattern, but he had a feeling that Beth was going to be losing a few diapers before he really learnt.

After the diaper change they had decided to see if the little girl was hungry. Judy again showed them how to prepare the meal so that it was in tiny, bite sized pieces that Beth would be able to grab and put in her mouth. They fed her some mashed up banana (which she seemed to love) and tried to coax her into trying some apple pieces (she threw those on the floor). They also gave her a small plastic cup of full cream milk- apparently they were supposed to encourage her to drink from cups now and reduce the amount of bottles she had access to. (It appeared Judy had spent some time on the internet the night before looking up some of the newer tips on raising toddlers and this was one of the big ones).

After she had eaten, they put her in the playpen with a couple of toys whilst they made sure that they had fixed up most of the house to make it safe. They put up gates at the top and bottom of the stairs to make sure that she couldn't fall and triple checked that all of the electricity outlets had child-proof covers on them.

When they were finally satisfied that they had done all they could, they had gone back to the playpen to find Beth happily walking around the edge of the pen, using the bars for support. When she saw them enter the room she squealed happily and let go of the bars and walked towards them with her hands up in the air. Puck had been shocked. He knew that she was over a year old, but he had thought that infants could only walk around 18 months, not 12.

"Mum, look! She's walking!" Quinn had squealed, and that had led Judy to run to find her camera so she could record the first time they had seen Beth walk. Beth for her part had been a bit confused at all the fuss. She had looked at them all as if they were crazy for making such a big deal out of something she had obviously been able to do for a couple of weeks. Still, she seemed to love the attention, babbling away and grabbing noses as they all showered her with attention.

Soon Judy announced that they should think about putting her to bed. Before bedtime though, it was always good to give toddlers a bath because the bath oils could help to make them sleepy. So they had pulled out all of the bath stuff and set it up before bathing their little girl. Beth had loved the bath, sending water flying in every direction as she waved her arms dramatically through the air.

"Are we _sure_ Berry's dramatics aren't contagious 'cause Beth's acting a lot like her," he had muttered to Quinn as they had dried Beth off and gotten her dressed for bed (that had taken a while- Beth had continued to move her arms around, making it difficult to put them into the sleeves of the pyjamas they had bought for her). Quinn had just flicked the wet towel at him for that comment.

Finally though, it got to the point where they needed to put her to bed for the night. In the bag that had held Beth's things, there had been a couple of picture books. They had grabbed one of them, as well as the bear that they had given her when she had been born and Quinn had read the story out to Beth whilst Puck had hovered behind her. Beth hadn't wanted to go to sleep at first, but a combination of the bath oils and the multitude of changes that she had been through during the day finally sent her off.

"Well, it's good to see you two survived day one of raising a child," Judy commented brightly as she entered the living room. Quinn was sitting in one of the armchairs, looking a little tired, but smiling. Puck was sprawled on the couch, feeling like he could fall asleep at any second. Then again, he had gotten little to no sleep the night before and it had been a long day. Still, he knew he was smiling and he didn't care that he had no energy- it was worth it to be with his baby girl.

"I can't believe how beautiful she is," Quinn repeated for what must have been the billionth time that day, "And she's so independent already... I mean, she's only a couple of weeks over a year old and she's already walking around like she's been doing it for years." She looked so proud and happy. He knew that he probably looked the same, but it was a really nice change to see on her. She had looked broken for so much of the past year that it made his heart lift to see her so positive.

"You'll see," Judy said with a smirk, "If you think she can do a lot now, wait till she starts talking properly. I have a feeling she's going to be able to talk the ear off a rabbit." The reference to rabbits went right over his head, but he didn't care. He wished that he could stay longer, maybe watch Beth sleep (because she looked so damn cute and innocent) but he knew that he had better head home. He and Quinn were just friends (who had a kid together) and it wouldn't really be right for him to stay.

"I think I'd better head home before I fall asleep," he almost fell over as he got up off the couch, but he hid it well. It was only a short drive from her house to his anyway. Judy nodded in approval of his words- she still didn't seem to like him, but as long as she allowed him to see Beth, that's all he cared about. Quinn stood to walk him to the door- politeness had been ingrained into her since she was little and he knew that she couldn't break out of the habit even if she wanted to.

"Thank you for today," she told him as she opened the door for him to leave, "You'll come by early tomorrow?" He nodded and tried to ignore the fact that she smelt like the lavender bath oil that they had used to bathe Beth. He and Quinn were _friends_- he had to keep repeating that in his head to make sure he didn't try to kiss her, like his heart was screaming at him to do.

"I'll be over around seven I think. Ma told me that kids tend to get up really early, but I don't want to come too early in case I wake her up. Is that okay?"

"Seven is perfect," she agreed, "If Beth wakes up before then, we can always change the time you come around, same if she gets up later. Like you said, we'll take it one day at a time." He nodded, noting that she was still smiling (and that her smile had gotten larger when he had said that he would be there).

"Have a good night," he waved a little awkwardly to her before making his way to his truck. As he drove home he kicked himself for looking like an idiot- the wave was a stupid move. He should have just said good night and then walked away and he would have, but he was concentrating so hard on not hugging or kissing her or something lovey-dovey like that, that he had waved like a dumb idiot. He knew that she wouldn't care, that she probably hadn't even noticed, but still, he had a reputation to protect.

He greeted his mother and his sister quickly, but was too tired to really stay and chat with them. Sarah had heaps of questions about Beth, but he assured her that she could come with their mother to see her tomorrow. The girl was satisfied with that and so he headed off to bed. It had been a long day and he was so exhausted, but he couldn't help but look forward to tomorrow. He was a dad now and he wouldn't change it for a thing.

* * *

><p>Kurt checked his watch again, making sure that it read the right time. Blaine looked over at him and chuckled.<p>

"Relax, will you? Finn will get home when he gets home. He's a big boy now," they were watching one of the many versions of _A Wizard of Oz-_ one of the stations was playing it and since they hadn't been able to decide on what movie to see (Blaine had wanted to see a comedy, but Kurt refused saying that he was in the mood for a drama. This was their compromise). Kurt sighed and fought the urge to check his watch again.

"I know, I know, I just want to know if she liked it or not. Finn trusted me to set up something that Rachel would like and if I got it wrong he'll never forgive me... well, he would because let's be honest, it's Finn, but he won't let me ever help him with stuff like this again, and that means I won't be able to help out with their wedding, and I've kind of already started playing around with several ideas," Blaine laughed again and Kurt tried not to take offense. He knew that Blaine found his rambling amusing and cute (Blaine's words; not his) and so he knew he wasn't making fun of him but still... sometimes it was easy to forget.

"Come on, you know she'll have loved it. This is Rachel we're talking about, and you got them tickets to see a _musical_- it may just be a local version of it, but that girl would happily die for a ticket to anything that even refers to music. She's going to love it and Finn will be happy and you'll get to plan their wedding," Blaine finally got around to reassuring him after he had finished chuckling. Kurt sighed and pushed his head back against the top of the couch, so he was looking more at the ceiling than at the screen (it was an ad break, so he wasn't going to miss anything).

"I know. I'm extremely talented at these sorts of things, but I can't quite get the feeling out of my head that something isn't right. I tend to be right about these things too," Blaine looked like he was about to argue, but at that point the front door opened and Finn came in, looking... well, he didn't look upset, but he didn't have the overly-excited happy grin that Kurt had been hoping for.

"Hey Kurt, Blaine," he nodded at them both before heading over to the air conditioner to get some cool air. It was quite warm outside. Kurt climbed off the couch and moved to lean casually against the wall opposite his step-brother. Blaine stayed where he was, but leaned forward so he would be able to hear what was going on. He also muted the TV.

"Hey, how'd everything go? You were gone all day," Kurt enquired in what he hoped was a casual tone. He knew that Finn would see through it, everyone always did, but if he tried to sound casual he at least made himself feel like less of a gossip. There was faulty logic in that somewhere, he knew, but he didn't care. It was just the way he worked.

"Oh, the musical was great. Rachel loved it. Thanks for setting it all up- I owe you one," Finn's voice didn't quite match his words- something had definitely happened. Kurt knew that he should probably try to be subtle about finding out what was wrong, but he had learnt long ago that subtlety never worked with Finn and he was too impatient to wait.

"Okay, what's going on? You're not as happy as I thought you'd be," he settled for saying and although he was highly tempted to add more questions, he knew that they would have to wait. Blaine gave him a small nod, as if praising him for sticking to one question when he knew he wanted to ask more. (Blaine had been lecturing him for a couple of weeks on how he needed to limit his curiosity. Apparently, not asking too many questions is the key to finding out more information... or at least that's what Blaine kept claiming).

"Oh... well, the reason I rushed out this morning was because Rachel was upset. Her birth mum- you remember Shelby Corcoran? The Vocal Adrenaline Coach? – Well, she died yesterday and Rachel found out this morning, so she was upset about it. I talked to her about it and she seemed a bit better about it all, but then she remembered that Shelby adopted Beth and so we went around to see Quinn to let her know and to see if we could try to find out if Beth was okay and all and then it turns out that Puck and Quinn already knew _and_ they knew how Beth was because she was there, like at Quinn's house. It turns out that Shelby made sure to put in her emergency information that Quinn was to be contacted if there ever was an accident and Quinn said she couldn't just give Beth away again, so now Beth is living at Quinn's house and the two of them are going to raise her." Kurt found his jaw dropping as Finn rushed through his explanation. Blaine, who didn't really know much about the whole Quinn-Puck-Finn-Beth situation other than some sketchy details, just looked confused.

"Wait, let me get this straight," Kurt began as he tried to sort it all out in his head, "Shelby is dead so Rachel is upset. I get that. And Puck and Quinn have got Beth back?" He saw Blaine's confused expression out of the corner of his eye and added, "Beth is Quinn's daughter... you remember how I said that one of the glee girls had a baby last year? That was Quinn. She and Puck... I'll explain later. But Beth is at the Fabray house now?" He directed the last comment to his step-brother, who appeared to have zoned out.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I met her. She's really... cute. She looks a lot like Quinn, but her hair is brown and her eyes aren't the same, but she's like a mini-Quinn. I spent the afternoon helping Puck build baby furniture and Rach helped Quinn do some other stuff to the house so Beth will be safe. It was weird... they both seemed so... happy about everything," Finn's comments were a bit vague, but Kurt could guess what he meant. Quinn and Puck had both been different since they had given away Beth. Quinn had tried to go back to being her old bitchy self (but had failed spectacularly as far as Kurt was concerned) and Puck had just seemed lost for the majority of the year. He could see how Finn would find their happiness weird.

"So how are Puck and Quinn going to work things out? Is Beth staying with Quinn permanently or is she moving between their houses or..." Kurt trailed off, hoping that Finn would get the hint and give him more information.

"She's staying at Quinn's. When we got to Quinn's thinking we had to tell her about Shelby, we saw Puck there and that was just... confusing. I mean, they're not even really friends but they have that weird connection thingy going- you know like the one Sue talked about at her sister's funeral- but Puck's with Zizes so they're in this stupid kind of... I don't know," it was exhausting talking with Finn sometimes- he never seemed to breathe. When he was on a roll, he just went for it and Kurt always found himself out of air just listening to him.

"Wait- Zizes and Puckerman aren't together anymore," the brothers immediately looked to Blaine, who obviously hadn't realised that they hadn't known this fact.

"What? How and when did you find this out?" Kurt was a little hurt that his boyfriend had neglected to share this information with him. How on Earth had he got this gossip? He didn't even go to their school, and as far as Kurt knew, had never even spoken to Puck.

"Oh... when Mercedes called the other day she mentioned it. I think Zizes told her about it. I honestly thought you already knew and since I don't actually know either of them very well, it slipped my mind to mention it," Kurt already had his phone out by the time Blaine finished speaking. He couldn't believe that Mercedes hadn't told him about this. They told each other _everything_ (although Kurt had a sneaking suspicion that Mercedes was dating Sam and hiding it... he made a promise to have a talk with the girl soon).

"_Hey Kurt, what's up?"_ she sounded a little nervous, as though he had interrupted her from doing something. He wasn't in the mood to care.

"What's this I hear about Zizes and Puck breaking up?" he skipped straight to the point. He felt too left out of the loop to care about social niceties. There was a muffled shuffling noise and he swore that he heard a voice in the background, but it went away too quickly for him to decipher.

"_Oh yeah, I kept on meaning to tell you about that. Zizes broke up with Puckerman. She told me that she is going away to some wrestling camp over the holidays anyway and she told me that she's pretty sure he's in love with Quinn anyway, so she decided it would be easier to just break it all off,"_ she explained. Mercedes had gotten pretty close to Zizes after the whole 'Night of Neglect' fiasco, but he hadn't realised that they had continued to talk about these kinds of things. Then again, he normally didn't care much about what Zizes did- he wasn't a fan of her fashion sense and she had refused his help a multitude of times- so he hadn't really been paying attention to all of that.

"Did she say how he reacted to that?" Mercedes must have definitely been distracted, because she normally would have spilled all of the details without any prompting. He _definitely _needed to confront her about her fling with Sam soon. He was fine with it- as long as it didn't interfere with her giving him the information he needed.

"_I don't think so. She said something about him seeming a bit depressed about it all, but that kind of sums up his mood a lot lately, so I don't know if she meant that it was more than usual or what,"_ Finn and Blaine were staring at him and he could sense their impatience. Finn wasn't usually one to gossip, but when it came to Puck he could be strangely possessive.

"Ah, hang on, Finn and Blaine are here and we need to go on speaker. You _have_ to hear what happened today. Sam will probably want to hear it too," Mercedes let out a small squeak. He rolled his eyes, "Look I'll talk to you later about that, just... you've _got_ to hear this." He pressed the button for speaker so that Finn and Blaine could hear and he knew that Mercedes had done the same for Sam because the shuffling sounds got louder.

"_Alright, so what's going on?"_ to say that Mercedes sounded annoyed would be an understatement. He supposed he probably could have broken the news about knowing about her and Sam a little better, but he couldn't worry about that now. He filled her and Sam in on the developments of the day, giving them as many details as he could.

"You know, as much as I hated them being together back when I first found out about it, they do make a pretty cool family," Finn commented as Kurt finished catching the other two up, "I mean Puck was doing that strange talking that people use with babies and Quinn couldn't stop smiling and staring at Beth and it wasn't awkward or anything except that it was just _weird_." There was silence on the other end for a few seconds.

"_You know, we seriously need to have a glee club intervention for those two,"_ Mercedes exclaimed, _"They're worse than Finchel at getting their act together."_ Kurt glanced up at Finn, but the taller boy just shrugged. Kurt figured that since Finn was usually the first to admit that Rachel was high maintenance he didn't have a problem with Mercedes' comment.

"_You know, Santana might know more about this. She and Puck are pretty close and since she has no morals, she is very good at prying information out of people,"_ Sam suggested. Kurt considered it for a moment before conceding that the boy had a point.

"Alright, hang on, I'll buzz her in, but if she is with Karofsky I'm cutting her out," there was no argument on that point, so he quickly dialled the Latina in. As he did so he noticed Finn pull out his phone and hit one of his speed dial numbers- he assumed he was going to get Rachel on board too. Blaine looked amused by the whole situation, but he was used to Kurt and Mercedes doing things like this, so he just sat back and enjoyed the chaos.

"_This better be good Kurt, coz me and Britt have stuff to do,"_ Kurt shuddered at the mental image that popped into his head at Santana's words. He knew that the two girls had a _close_ relationship, but preferred not to think about it- more because Santana was so evil and Britt so innocent than the fact that they were both girls of course.

"Look, put your phone on speaker. It's Klaine, Finchel and Samcedes (the last earned another indignant squeak from his best friend). We have some info and we want to see if you know anything," he filled the two ex-Cheerios in on the situation.

"_Ooh I should take Lord Tubbington over to meet Beth so they can have a tea party,"_ Britt exclaimed once he had finished. Kurt felt everyone roll their eyes, but they were used to Britt by now so they just ignored it.

"_You know, they both seemed really happy today. Maybe we should just leave them alone and just help out with Beth if they need it,"_ Rachel hesitantly suggested. Her suggestion was ignored.

"Santana, has Puck said anything to you about anything recently?" Kurt deliberately kept the question as vague as possible, knowing that if he asked for specifics she wouldn't give up the information. This kind of thing was a game for her and he didn't want to encourage it.

"_Not really,"_ she seemed to hesitate.

"_Come on San, you know something I can tell,"_ Britt chimed in. Brittany usually didn't partake in this sort of conversation, so it surprised him to hear her wanting more details.

"_Fine, but if he gets pissed at me for saying something you all have to back me up, okay? I saw him a couple of days ago and he seemed really down, like he wasn't listening to me at all AND he wasn't interested in looking at my new tattoo. I asked him if he was really that depressed that Zizes dumped him, 'cause really, she's not even hot, but anyway he said he didn't really care about that. I asked him why he was acting like such a sook and he muttered something about his antidepressants not working anymore, which I totally didn't believe so-"_

"Wait, did you just say antidepressants?" Kurt cut in, unable to wait until the end of Santana's spiel. Finn looked a little puzzled and Blaine was frowning, looking deep in thought.

"_Oops, didn't you guys know about that? Puck's had like depression or something all year. Why else would he drive into the side of a convenience store?"_ dead silence met Santana's question. Kurt suddenly felt really uncomfortable. He was all for gossiping, but it was quite another thing to learn something this serious about a close acquaintance (he wouldn't go as far as to say that he and Puck were friends just yet... maybe by the end of high school they would be, but they weren't quite there yet).

"Wait... are you saying that he tried to..." Finn looked like he was going to be sick. Kurt supposed that it was a hundred times worse for Finn- he had known Puck since practically forever, so he probably thought that he knew him pretty well, and he obviously thought that Puck wasn't capable of doing something like that.

"_Well he didn't come out and admit it, but I thought it was pretty obvious, and after juvie he had that diagnosis of depression, so I put two and two together and got four. You seriously didn't think it was weird that he tried to steal an ATM? Anyway, I didn't believe him about his meds 'cause like, his meds have been working fine all year, but he wouldn't change his story,"_ everyone was still reeling from the revelation that Puck had quite possibly been suicidal to really register what she was saying.

"_I think Berry's right, maybe we should just leave this one alone,"_ Mercedes said slowly. Kurt knew that his best friend was feeling pretty bad right now. She had always been one of Puck's biggest critics in glee, and he knew that she had helped convince Quinn to break up with him both whilst Quinn had been pregnant and then again after Beth had been born. Mercedes had always said that Puck was just too cocky and selfish and thought way too much of himself to be any good in a relationship. Now that they knew about all of this, it seemed that Puck wasn't as confident as he tried to portray.

"I agree," Finn said slowly, still looking sick. Everyone chimed in their agreement, all sounding very subdued, except for Santana who didn't really seem to care much either way. Kurt had a feeling that Santana's 'accidental' slip that Puck was on antidepressants wasn't as innocent as she tried to play it. He knew that there was more to Santana than the bitch everyone associated her with- there was no way Brittany would be so close to her if there wasn't- and he suspected that she had deliberately let that fact slip so that they would leave Puck alone. She was pretty sneaky.

"Wow. Your glee club is... just wow," Blaine commented after they had all hung up. The Warblers never had this much drama going on- then again, there were no girls in the Warblers and it really was the mix of genders that caused the most trouble in New Directions.

"I think I'm going to go sleep now," Finn said in a dazed voice. He took a few steps towards the stairs to go up to his room before stopping and staring at the ground for a few seconds, "You know, I thought, when I heard about it, that Puck wouldn't be stupid enough to try to steal an ATM. I knew he was upset about Quinn and Beth and all of that but I didn't even try to talk to him about it all 'cause, like it was too hard and I was friends with Sam which was weird 'cause he was dating Quinn and so... am I a bad friend?" Kurt sometimes forgot that Finn blamed himself for everything bad that happened to anyone he knew. It was the one quality that Finn had that he hated.

"Finn, depression is an illness that is very complicated. It's very hard for someone to deal with and often they don't say anything to anyone about how they're feeling. I don't know Puckerman very well, but he doesn't exactly look like the kind of guy who does the whole 'care and share' thing. Depression is incredibly hard to pick up by someone who isn't a trained professional- you didn't do anything wrong," Blaine explained gently, doing a better job than Kurt would have done. Finn didn't look overly convinced, but he nodded.

"Thanks. I'll see you guys later," with that he finally went on his way. Kurt sighed once Finn was out of sight and hit his head against the wall.

"Okay, so that was completely my fault. I should have just left it alone at the start, or at least not dragged in Santana," he admitted, now that Blaine was the only one who could hear him. Blaine shrugged.

"Well yes, it might not have been the best idea you've had, but I don't know if it is a bad thing that everyone knows now. I mean, Puck obviously wasn't spreading it around, but a good support group is always good for helping someone with depression. As long as everyone doesn't start alienating him because of it, I don't think that it's wrong that we know about it," Blaine reasoned out, "I still think you need to reign in some of your gossiping impulses, but really, you couldn't have known that Santana would spill something like that."

"Strangely enough I think that was Santana's way of helping him out. She knew that if we all felt uncomfortable about it we wouldn't interfere with him and Quinn, and since he sounds happy at the minute... Santana really isn't as bad as she seems sometimes," he stood up from leaning against the wall and glanced at his watch, "Anyway, I need to stop thinking about all of this. Let's just finish the movie and then I'd better drive you home before my dad flips out again." Blaine hit the mute button before patting the seat on the couch next to him. As Kurt sat down and put his head on his boyfriend's shoulder, he hoped that he hadn't just screwed everything in glee club even more.

* * *

><p>Once Puck had left, despite the fact that it was only eight o'clock, Quinn had gone straight upstairs and fallen asleep. The day had been long and emotionally draining and it didn't help that she had barely slept the night before. So she had quickly fallen into a deep sleep. When she woke up, the sun wasn't even in sight. She rolled over and checked her phone to see that it was 4 a.m. She stopped breathing for a second to check that it hadn't been Beth's crying that had woken her, but the house was silent.<p>

She rolled back over and closed her eyes, wanting to go back to sleep. The only problem was she was too wired to sleep. It was too close to morning- she was paranoid that if she went back to sleep she would miss Beth waking up and that Beth's crying wouldn't wake her up and that her little girl would end up crying and crying and feel really neglected. She knew that she was being irrational- she had a baby monitor switched on as loud as it could go right next to her bed, and Beth's room was right next door to her room and even if she didn't wake, her mother probably would but... she couldn't risk it.

Sighing to herself she acknowledged the fact that she wasn't going to get back to sleep. She sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. She almost wished that it was school time so she could use the time productively and do some homework. She didn't want to leave her room in case she woke her mother or Beth, so she had to find something to do that was quiet.

At first she tried reading a book, but she couldn't concentrate on it. Her eyes kept on flickering from the pages in front of her to the baby monitor and she felt tense waiting for Beth's cries. She knew that babies could sleep a lot though, so really it was probably going to be another couple of hours till she woke, but she couldn't help it.

After she gave up on her book she looked around her room and her eyes landed on a small blue book that was hidden away at the bottom of her bookshelf. She carefully climbed out of her bed and crept across her room to grab it. (She knew that she was being overly cautious, but she didn't know how light a sleeper her daughter was yet and she really didn't want to risk it.)

The book was a mix between a scrapbook and a diary. It was from her pregnancy. Her sister (who had been pretty supportive during the pregnancy- she lived a couple of states away though so she hadn't been able to physically be there for her) had suggested it, so that even though Quinn wasn't going to keep the baby, she could have some memories of the time that she could reflect on later. Her sister had also said that if she ever got to meet Beth in the future, she could show her this scrapbook to show that she really did care for her. Quinn had thought that it was a good idea, so she had done it (despite the fact that it had made her feel terrible at times when doing it).

As she flipped through the pages of the scrapbook and looked at the various pictures, she couldn't believe how much had changed since her pregnancy. For example, when she had first found out she was pregnant she had written in that she was terrified of breaking Coach Sylvester's diet. She found that hilarious now- her pregnancy really had changed her view on food for forever and it was a positive change.

She had taken the diary part of the scrapbook too personally really- she doubted that she would ever show what she had written to Beth. It wasn't that it was bad- she never said anything about how much she had hated being pregnant (which she was ashamed to admit, had crossed her mind at least a million times when considering what to write) but she had written quite a lot of really personal stuff about her and Puck.

For example she had written in, on the night that she and Puck had babysat Terri's sisters' kids- that she was really lucky that she had fallen in love and was having a baby with such a sweet, caring and totally hot guy. She blushed as she read that- it was true that she thought that about Puck, but she didn't really want anyone else to ever see that. The entry she had written on the Monday afterwards wasn't as nice- that Puck was a two-timing, cheating, sleazy bastard who didn't deserve to have any say at all on what happened to the baby.

When she thought back to what Puck had said that day, she still felt a little sick. He had explained himself later on, when they were actually together. It had been when she had lived with him and his family and he had come into her room, plopped down on the bed and said "Look, you know how I said that shit about wanting to sleep with all the hot girls whilst still being in on the baby thing? Well, I was kind of pissed. Finn had been telling me all weekend how he had this massive apology planned for you and how he was going to be a better boyfriend and a whole heap of other sappy shit, and I thought that you had talked to Finn and were going to tell me I was out anyway. The reason I sexted Santana on Friday was because she would have known something was up if I didn't reply to her, and she can be pretty nasty when she doesn't get what she wants. And just in case you didn't want me to be involved, I had to keep my options open, so I replied. But I really was into the babysitting and I'm sorry that I acted like an asshole."

She still thought that that was one of the worst days of her life, but when she thought about what he had said, she couldn't really blame him for sexting Santana. She had still been with Finn and she hadn't exactly been very forthcoming about why she was going babysitting with him. The comments had still stung really badly- he had attacked one of her biggest insecurities- and it had been a while before she had managed to forgive him for it. She knew now that he had been just as insecure as she had been, if not more so and that it was more his protective instincts kicking in rather than any genuine belief in his words, but still...

She shook her head and turned the page. It didn't matter now- they weren't together anymore and it didn't look like they ever would be. He was happy with Lauren and she had... Well, she had Beth to think about now. (Before she had pretty much known that she was giving her up but now she knew that Beth was hers forever).

She continued to flip through the scrapbook, giggling at some of the things that Mercedes and Kurt had added (under careful supervision to make sure that they didn't read anything she didn't want them to) and feeling tears well up in her eyes at other things in there, such as the memory of when her parents had kicked her out. She was glad that she had made this souvenir of her pregnancy because it had been a special time in her life and although a lot of it had been hard and she had hated it a lot of the time, she didn't regret it now at all. She had found out who her true friends were (pretty much everyone in glee) and what mattered to her (like food, glee, school and friendship...and Puck) and what wasn't important (the Cheerios, popularity and fake relationships topping that list.).

It must have taken her over an hour to flip through the book, and once she had finished she just sat back and reflected on what she had just read. She knew that things had changed quite a bit since Beth had been born- the most significant thing (other than Beth herself) being that she and Puck had kind of dissolved- but she hoped that she could find the happiness that she had been sure she had almost found at various points during her pregnancy.

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of her daughter crying. It looked as though Beth had decided to wake up for the day. She gave the clock a quick glance on her way out of the room and was surprised to see that it was 5:30. She must have been lost in thought for longer than it had felt.

Beth was banging on the sides of her crib, crying when Quinn found her.

"Hey, don't cry baby girl, Mummy's here to get you," she cooed. Beth looked up at the sound of her voice. She stopped crying, but continued to bang on the sides of the crib, "Oh, I know sweetie, you want to get out of there, don't you? Alright, come here." She carefully lifted the toddler out of the crib and quickly felt at her diaper. She wasn't entirely sure if it needed to be changed, but she figured that it had been hours since Beth had been bathed and changed, so it probably wouldn't hurt to change it. Besides, she was fairly certain that the diaper was a bit wet and she didn't want to risk it.

She took Beth over to the changing table and hoped that she remembered what her mother had shown her correctly. She was both happy and disgusted at what she found in the diaper Beth had been wearing- happy because she had been right to change it, disgusted because, well, it was gross.

"Baba yaba mana ba!" Beth babbled excitedly, almost sounding as if she was making sense. Quinn couldn't stop herself from smiling.

"Ah, that's very interesting, but would you repeat that in English please?" she teased, tickling her daughter's sides and hoping like hell that she had put the diaper on properly. Beth squealed with laughter and kicked her feet in an attempt to get away, "Nope, there's no escape from the tickle monster!" She continued to tickle Beth for a little longer, loving the little girl's laughter, but she knew that she needed to stop so she could get Beth dressed for the day.

"More!" Quinn felt her heart stop as she realised that Beth had said her first real word- well, that she knew of. Tears welled up in her eyes as she realised that this may not actually be Beth's first word- that Shelby had probably heard her speak before- but she blinked them away rapidly. As far as she was concerned, her first word was more.

"More? You want more? Alright, you asked for it!" she attacked her daughter again, and Beth immediately squealed with laughter. They followed this pattern a couple more times- Quinn would stop with the tickling and Beth would just say "more!" and Quinn was unable to resist granting her request (although it was more like a demand than a request). Finally Beth seemed to tire of the game and didn't ask for more. Quinn was a little disappointed that the game was over. It felt so good to hear Beth speak, even if it was just to demand some more tickling. She wondered if the little girl knew any more words, but just hadn't used them because she was in a strange place.

She quickly dressed a protesting Beth- the toddler seemed more interested in trying to get the clothes _off_ instead of keeping them on. She dressed her in a pink t-shirt with a little love heart on it, and a pair of bright pink pants. She knew that Puck would probably protest about the colour, but she thought Beth looked really cute so she didn't care. She knew he probably wouldn't argue too much anyway, especially when he heard that Beth could talk.

Thinking about what Puck's possible reaction to the news that Beth could speak was going to be, she took Beth downstairs and sat her down in the highchair. Before she got her something to eat however, she decided to lay down some rules.

"Alright little miss, here's the deal," she began, knowing that she probably sounded a little nuts for trying to reason with a toddler, but she couldn't help it, "I know that you can talk a bit and that you probably have no idea what I'm saying, but you have to promise me that you'll call me 'mama' _before_ you start calling your dad 'dada', okay?" Beth just stared at her like she was talking nonsense. Quinn sighed before turning to the fridge to see what they could have for breakfast.

"Mama?" she whirled back around to face her daughter, who was smiling at her innocently.

"Did you just call me mama?" she asked, bewildered by what she had just heard. Sure, Beth was almost 13 months old, and her mother had said that most children spoke before they were one nowadays, but Beth had just met her yesterday and there was no way a toddler would be able to associate someone who was basically a stranger with the word 'mama'. As she reasoned that out, she felt her happy mood start to disappear. Beth hadn't been calling her 'mama'. She had been asking where Shelby was.

"Oh sweetie... Shelby's not here, but don't worry, I'll look after you okay? I'm your mummy. I love you so much and I'll keep you safe, I promise," she forgot about breakfast and rushed back over to give Beth a hug, "I'm your mama now. I'm probably not as good as Shelby was, but I'll try. I hope you'll love me as much as you love her." Beth giggled and grabbed her nose.

"Baboo nana noo!" she babbled happily, content now that she was being held. Quinn held her closer, as if by holding her closer she could make the girl realise that she belonged to her now. They stayed like that for a few more moments before Beth started to protest. Quinn placed her back in the highchair and prepared some breakfast- more mashed banana because she knew Beth liked it- along with a cup of milk.

After breakfast Quinn took Beth to the living room and flipped on the TV. She found a children's show and kept it on in the background. She didn't necessarily want Beth to watch the show, but it was an educational show and she figured that it wouldn't hurt to have it on. She rummaged through the bag of Beth's possessions they had gotten from foster care and pulled out a couple of the toys. There was a small xylophone and one of those keyboards that lit up different colours whenever a different note was hit. There was also a tub of pink and purple building blocks and a couple of Barbie dolls.

Quinn lined the toys up in front of her daughter and waited for the girl to make her choice. With all the cooing Beth had been doing, she had expected the girl to reach for the musical toys, but she instantly grabbed the blocks.

"Okay, what do you want to build?" Quinn asked the girl. It turned out that Beth wasn't really interested in building anything, but more in stacking the blocks up and then knocking them down. She giggled every time the blocks of the tower crashed to the ground and split apart.

"Yep, you are _definitely_ your daddy's kid," Quinn told her a little wryly as she watched Beth knock the blocks over for what had to be the hundredth time. She was about to help Beth gather the blocks together when there was a knock on the front door. She glanced down at her watch to see that it was seven, "Well Beth, we have a visitor. Who could it be? Do you want to go see?" She didn't really give Beth a chance to decide, as she gathered her up in one swoop, "I think it's your daddy. Do you want to go say hi to your daddy?" She continued talking as they walked to the door, knowing that she probably sounded really stupid, but not caring.

"Hey," Puck said as she opened the door. His eyes immediately went to their daughter and he wrinkled his nose, "Did you seriously dress her in _pink_? Stereotype much?" She rolled her eyes and nodded for him to come in.

"Don't worry, she just spent the past half an hour building towers out of blocks and then knocking them over. I doubt that we'll have to worry about the pink," she said dryly. They made their way back to the living room and she put Beth back down next to the blocks. She turned back to Puck and realised that he had brought his guitar. He saw her looking at it and shrugged.

"She seems to like music so I thought that it might help settle her down to sleep if we played to her or something," he explained, "Shelby seemed really into music so it might be something she did with her and if it was then... I know that she settled down okay yesterday, but I'm pretty sure she's not going to do that again, so I figured we could try this if she's being fussy." Quinn had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling too much.

"Sounds like a plan," she told him as she turned her attention back to Beth. She had thought that the girl would be building more towers, but instead she was staring at Puck as though he was the most interesting thing in the world. She felt a little jealous, even though she had spent the past hour and a half being the centre of Beth's world.

"Hey B, how're you finding your new place?" Puck swung Beth up into his arms and she immediately reached out to grab his nose. He rolled his eyes, "Come on B, what's up with the nose grabbing? Do you really want to get snot all over your hand?" He settled down on the couch and put her on his knee so that she was facing him. She frowned as her hand lost contact with his nose and stood up, determined to get his nose back in her grasp again.

"Kaba!" she exclaimed, pointing at his nose. He laughed before turning to Quinn.

"Did you know that this is a kaba?" he asked her, pointing at his nose. He picked Beth up and moved her onto the couch before starting a tickling war. Quinn waited, wondering if there would be a repeat of her own tickling war. Puck continued his baby talk whilst Beth squealed with laughter. Finally he let the little girl up, but she didn't want any of that.

"More!" she demanded, rolling herself back onto her back so that she would be in prime tickle position. Puck's face was priceless.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, completely blindsided by the fact that his daughter knew a word. Quinn nodded.

"She did the same thing to me earlier this morning after I changed her diaper," she admitted. Puck considered it for a moment, looking pretty proud.

"Well, if the little princess asked for it, the little princess will get it," he declared, before directing his tickling powers onto the little girl. Quinn watched as the game continued on, Puck stopping every few seconds until he heard the demand for "more!" and then it all started again.

Her family had never been warm, close or playful, but as she watched her daughter and Puck interact, she wished that things had been different. She couldn't remember her dad ever playing with her the way Puck was now with Beth- he had spent a lot of time with her and given her cuddles and taken her to sports games- but there had always been a distance between them, something that stopped them from acting completely free with each other. The same had been true for her mother- whilst Judy had been a bit more outgoing and had played a lot more freely with her, there had still been that distance. She really wished that her childhood had been different.

"Hey, want to double team her?" she was pulled out of her wistful thoughts by Puck's question. Beth was eagerly watching the two of them, as though she understood what was going on. Apparently Quinn was taking too long to decide.

"More! More! More!" Beth chanted, looking between the two of them with pleading eyes. Quinn winked at Puck before launching herself at her daughter, the chants for more disappearing underneath the little girl's laugh.

Yes, she wished that her family growing up had been different, but now she had a chance to fix that. She had her own family now and she promised herself then and there that she would _never_ let anything come in between her and her daughter.

Needless to say, the tickle war lasted quite a while.

* * *

><p>If there was one thing that Santana Lopez hated, it was admitting to someone that she had been wrong. Okay, there were a lot of things that she hated, but the top of the list (other than the fact that Brittany refused to be her girlfriend) was telling someone who she cared about that she had screwed up and told a whole heap of other gleeks something she was supposed to keep a secret. It wasn't because she felt guilty about telling everyone that Puck had depression- she had been telling him for a while to stop being a pussy and just tell everyone- but she knew that he was going to hate her for it. Puck tended to stop talking to her when he was pissed at her, and even though she found it refreshing not to hear about all of the shit that was going on in his life, she missed having someone she could rant about Britt to.<p>

She considered not letting him know that she had told everyone, but immediately shot that down. He would be even more pissed with her if he heard from someone else that she had spilled, and knowing Finn's secret keeping abilities (he may have some singing talent and can handle a football pretty well, but boy could he not keep his mouth shut about things he felt guilty about) she knew she was screwed. So she took a deep breath and punched his number into his phone, hoping that he would be in such a good mood about Beth that he wouldn't ream into her about telling.

"_What now?"_ wow. It seemed as though the dwarf hadn't lied when she said that Puck had looked happy. Although the words were meant to sound as though he was annoyed, his voice sounded lighter than it had been in years. She briefly wondered if babies had some sort of intoxicating drug imbedded in their skin that made perfectly normal people turn into goofy, smiley idiots.

"So I hear you got your baby back. How is the little devil? Found her tail yet?" she couldn't resist teasing him. They had been friends for years and this was the way it worked between them. They both had trouble trusting people and they had figured out that these little insults were the best way to communicate. It was twisted, but it worked for them.

"_Wow, a compliment from the mouth of Satan herself. I thought you didn't talk to Gleeks in the holidays- don't you spend all of your time making voodoo dolls of Berry and raising demons to try to terrorise the world or something like that?"_

"Hey, my Berry doll was very accurate thank you very much, and she cost us Nationals, so it was only fair that she suffer for that. Anyway, talking of Gleeks, I kind of spilled that thing you told me to a few of the Gleeks yesterday, so if they come crying to you about how sorry they are they didn't notice, you've been warned," she bit her lip and held her breath while she waited for him to process that information. She hated that she cared so much about what he was going to say.

There were only a few people whose opinions mattered to her- Britt was number one, then her dad and her mum and her brother. Puck and Quinn were probably the only other two people that mattered- well, and Mr. Schuster (the Spanish teacher just had a way of worming himself into all of their hearts... it was freaky and a little disturbing how good he was at it). Some of the other Gleeks were close to making it onto the list- Mercedes for one- but they hadn't made it yet. Puck was definitely there though, so his reaction to what she had just said was crucial.

"_Wait, what?"_ she really didn't want to have to repeat it and she knew that it wasn't going to be better for him to hear it the second time around. She panicked and instinctively tried to defend herself.

"They were going on about staging some sort of intervention for you and blondie because the two of you are so sickeningly cute and obvious that it isn't funny and I knew that you wouldn't appreciate it so I told them about, well, you know and they all decided to leave you and Q alone, so you really should be thanking me," he didn't say anything for what felt like a long time, but she knew that she was probably being overdramatic. Finally she heard him sigh and she could almost see him run a hand through his Mohawk in frustration.

"_What exactly did you say?"_ the lightness in his voice had almost disappeared now and that made her feel worse than if he had yelled at her. Damn, she really was starting to grow a conscience. She had been worried about him for most of the year- which was why she had gotten so aggressive towards Quinn and Lauren at various points in the year (Quinn because she thought it was a bit harsh the way she had just dumped him, and Lauren because the girl was obviously just using him for popularity... and he had obviously lost his sanity to date her).

"The truth. I told them you have that depression thing and that you're on meds and then pointed out that they're all a bunch of idiots for not using their tiny little brains to figure all of this out earlier, 'cause really who on Earth would believe that _you_ would try to steal an ATM unless they didn't have a brain?" she was aware that she was rambling, but she couldn't stop, "You know, you should have just told them all about it. I'm pretty sure Finn's freaking out about it all now and if you had just told him when it happened, he would have been fine with it. Now he's going to blame himself and act all girly till you talk to him about it."

"_Well I wasn't planning on ever telling him about it, so that's your fault,"_ he accused, sounding a bit more pissed than just upset now. She rolled her eyes, feeling herself get angry. It was an automatic response for her whenever anyone blamed her for anything, even if it was completely her fault.

"You really think that he was never going to find out about it? Come on, you guys practically live at each other's houses over summer. He was bound to find your stash at some point. I probably should've just let that happen- I bet that would have been a _fascinating _conversation," yep, she was so setting herself up for it now. He probably would refuse to talk to her for the rest of the summer if this continued. She really didn't want that, but she was sick of covering for him and helping him to hide everything from his friends. She was also just too plain angry to stop at this point.

"_Look Santana that was __my__ secret to tell, not yours. How would you feel if I went over and told Artie that you have tried to steal his girlfriend away from him? How would you feel if I told everyone in glee that you are a lesbian and that you're just with Karofsky so no one finds out that both you and he are gay? And don't deny it- I've known about Karofsky for ages- he keeps on checking Sam out- and you're easy to read. Would you like it if I shared around all of your secrets?"_ she hugged her unoccupied arm to her chest, feeling sick. She was right about how pissed he was. She should have just let the Gleeks come up with some crappy plan- they probably wouldn't have done anything too bad. It wasn't worth this.

"Please don't," she couldn't remember the last time she had said 'please' to someone outside of her immediate family and meant it. Sure she had said it sarcastically all the time, but she had never meant it this much before, "I'm sorry okay? I just thought... I thought that it would help you. You've been pretty down lately and I know the whole thing with Zizes hurt you more than you care to admit and I just thought that if you had more people to talk to about it all, then it would help, okay? I know you and Finn haven't had a good couple of years, but he's like your best friend and I just wanted to help, okay? It's shocking I know but it turns out I do actually care about people- well, some people anyway- and I care about you so... just please don't tell anyone!"

"_I never said I would. Just... just leave me alone for a while. I can't talk about all of this now and... I just thought I could trust you. I'll see you at school,"_ and with that he hung up. Shit. School was weeks away- it was only the third week of summer. She had seriously messed up. He had trusted her. She knew that he had trust issues, and she had gone and spilled everything anyway. It didn't matter that she was trying to help- she was an idiot for using that as an excuse. She really should have known better.

At least she knew that he wasn't going to spill everything he knew about her- he was, despite popular belief, actually a decent guy and he tended to use violence to get back at people more than gossip. He wouldn't hurt her- she knew that. He was more likely to go punch a wall or something to deal with his own feelings on the matter and he would get back at her by using silence as his weapon. She sighed again.

She had a feeling it was going to be a pretty lonely summer, and she only had herself to blame for that.

* * *

><p>Puck really felt like hitting something as he put his phone back into his pocket. Santana always had the worst timing. He had just been getting everything back on track in his life and he had been feeling really <em>good<em>- granted it had only been a day and a half that he had, but still, that was progress- and she has to go and tell everyone about his illness. At least he could be grateful that she hadn't told Quinn- he was sure that she would have mentioned it by now if she had heard about it.

"Everything okay?" he jumped as Quinn entered the kitchen. He was still at her house. They had just put Beth down for a nap after lunch and so when his phone rang he had escaped to the kitchen to answer it. Quinn had stayed in Beth's room, watching her sleep and he hadn't expected her to come down to talk to him.

"Of course, just Santana being the manipulative bitch everyone loves to hate," he realised what he had just said, who he had said it to and how he had said it and tried to backtrack quickly, "I mean... I have to go talk to Finn about something and while I'm there I'll talk to Burt about that job. I shouldn't be too long- hopefully I'll be back before she wakes up." She didn't look very convinced by his explanation and he felt himself pouring the truth (but not the whole truth) out before he could stop himself, "Look, Santana told Finn and a couple of the other Gleeks something that I told her and I'm pretty sure that Finn is feeling all guilty about it all- you know how he always thinks that things are his fault- so I have to talk to him soon otherwise he's going to turn into a girl and whine about it for the next year."

"Okay," she shrugged as though it wasn't a big deal and he realised, kind of belatedly, that she probably didn't care about all of that. All of the stuff Santana had said had thrown him and he felt like he was in unfamiliar territory and he had no idea why, "She's sleeping pretty well at the minute, and my mother told me that naps generally take one or two hours for infants Beth's age, so you have plenty of time. Say hi to Finn and Kurt for me." She moved on to the fridge and grabbed out some juice whilst he still processed that she was okay with the situation. Shaking his head slowly to clear it, he left the house with a quick 'bye' to Quinn.

He spent the short drive to Finn's house wondering what the hell he was going to say. He knew that going in and saying 'Oh yeah, whoops, forgot to tell you that sometimes all I can think about is the best way to off myself' probably wasn't a good idea, but he had no idea how he was supposed to talk about this. He was pretty sure that Finn would get upset however he started the conversation- he knew that he would be devastated if he was told that Finn had depression and he hadn't known.

By the time he reached Finn's house he still didn't know what to say, but figured that Finn would say enough to start off with. He hadn't really been to Finn's since the boy and his mother had moved to the Hummel residence, so the whole experience was going to be interesting. As he knocked on the front door he tried to forget that the last time he had been at this house he had been helping to nail lawn furniture to the roof. Those memories were so not helpful at the moment.

"Oh, hey Puckerman," as soon as he saw the look on Kurt's face- a mixture of guilt and terror- he knew that Kurt had been one of the Gleeks to hear his secret. Judging by the look on his face, he had probably been the one to get Santana to spill. Puck would've said something to him about it, but he was already too annoyed that he had to talk to Finn, so he didn't bother.

"Is Finn here?" he figured he'd get the really awkward stuff over and done with first before he dealt with Burt about the job. That way he wouldn't be too distracted and miss hearing important details about what he needed to do. Kurt nodded and gestured for him to go inside.

"Yes, he's been in his room all morning," it was clear that Kurt wasn't going to bring it up, so Puck let him off. If he didn't want to acknowledge it that was fine by him. He did wonder who else now knew about it, but didn't want to risk igniting the issue by asking.

"Thanks," he left Kurt in the living room, despite the fact that he had no idea where Finn's room was. He figured he'd be able to find it- it was obviously somewhere in the house and he was sure that Finn's guilt would practically ooze out of the doorway anyway. He was right- Finn was listening to some really emo song.

"What is this girly shit you're listening to?" he asked, trying to sound casual as he entered the room. Finn sat up quickly from where he had been staring at the ceiling, his eyes widening as he saw Puck standing in the doorway, "And people say _I'm_ the depressed one." Okay, so that was probably not the best thing to say, but really it was better than most of the things he had come up with on the way over, and it was a little bit funny. Finn didn't seem to think so.

"Why didn't you tell me, douche," he picked up the pillow he had been lying on and threw it at Puck, "I mean, I knew that you were acting all weird and stuff, but first there was all of that stuff with Quinn and then I became friends with Sam and he was dating Quinn and so it was just awkward to bring it up and then you made out with Rach and I got pissed at you for it, but you still could've talked to me about it! You didn't even really have to say much; just a heads up would've been nice! Instead I have to hear from _Santana_, who doesn't even have a soul, that you tried to kill yourself by crashing into a convenience store. Why didn't you tell me?" Okay, he had expected the rant, but the pillow throwing was a bit much. He tossed it back and nabbed a seat on Finn's desk chair (after quickly pushing off the clothes that had been sitting on there- Finn wasn't the neatest guy in the world).

"Look, it isn't a big deal, alright? I'm sorry I didn't tell you but I really didn't think it was worth worrying anyone about. The people at juvie made a big deal out of it and gave me some meds and everything's been fine since. My mum is watching me like a hawk now because of it and I didn't want everyone to look at me like I was some freak, so I just didn't say anything. Everything's fine now so can we just forget about it, please?" he was so sick of this issue coming between him and the people who knew about it. He knew that people were scared for him, but seriously, he was on medication and he had been feeling really happy and now everyone was ruining it by making him feel like an asshole for keeping this secret to himself.

"Of course it's a big deal- you tried to kill yourself. You actually thought that everything would be better if you were dead. That's seriously fucked up dude," Finn pointed out. Puck sighed and realised that he wasn't going to get out of this unless he actually talked about his feelings. He _definitely_ wasn't going to be talking to Santana anytime soon.

"It wasn't like that... not really," he mentally set himself before continuing, hating remembering back to the year before because it hurt, "I just... This thing is kind of like... shit this is going to sound really fucking gay- no offense- but..." This was why he never talked about his feelings. He never could find the words that described it properly. Finn was watching him though, looking like a wounded puppy, so he knew he had to go through with it, "It's like... it was like wherever I went there was this shadow that was inside of me and it weighed like a ton and it kept on growing darker and darker and made everything just suck. I had to force myself to get out of bed so Ma and Sarah didn't worry and I spent a lot of time at the gym 'cause like physical pain was better than the shadow-like stuff and then one day I just got sick of it and before I knew it I had driven into the side of the store."

He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, unable to look at his friend, not wanting to know the effect that his words may be having. He really hated talking about this stuff. It made him sound pathetic and weak and those were two words that other people weren't allowed to associate with him (although he did so himself all of the time... but that was a secret).

"So you never thought about killing yourself other than that one time?" Finn asked softly. This was why he had never told anyone. He didn't need to be treated like he was a little kid.

"Fuck off," he really wanted to storm out, but he knew that Finn would catch him before he could leave the house (damn him and his freakishly long legs) and he really didn't want to have this conversation in front of Kurt, "Don't you dare treat me like I'm a fucking kid. Don't treat me like I'm going to break any second because I was perfectly fine this morning until I heard that I have to go around explaining myself to a group of people who now think that they have to keep me away from sharp objects. Of course it wasn't the only time I ever thought about killing myself- I used to think about it _all the time_. I never did anything about it and even my lame attempt to off myself wasn't all that fucking serious because really, driving into a convenience store isn't very high up on the 'how to commit suicide' list and I'm fucking glad that I didn't actually hurt myself, but no one's going to care about that now. All any of you are going to see now when you look at me is 'oh look, there's the asshole who thinks about killing himself all of the time- better keep him away from those guitar strings' and that's a load of fucking bullshit. If you really are my best friend like you keep on claiming to be you'll just leave it alone and pretend that none of this ever happened!"

Finn was staring at him with his mouth wide open. His mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out. Puck took the opportunity to try to calm himself down. He really wished that he hadn't exploded like that (and lied... he had tried to kill himself before then, but he couldn't admit that), especially at Finn, who probably didn't deserve it, but he couldn't help it. He _hated_ that soft tone of voice Finn had used and he had never denied that he had anger management problems.

"I didn't mean... fuck... I just... I know you're not going to break, alright? I just... if you say that you're fine now then I believe you but... just promise me you'll come hang out and play Mario or kill zombies or something if you're not?" damn, Finn had that wounded puppy look down pat alright. It was so hard to stay mad at the guy. He was just so _sincere_ about everything.

"Everything's good now, really," his anger had all gone as he reassured his friend, "But if it's ever not, I'll be more than happy to come kill zombies. But I'm not going to feel like fucking killing myself every time I come over, alright? The stupid doctor people told me that my meds should be right now so I doubt it'll get that bad again, but if it does, I'll let you know." He hated that he had just agreed to that, but Finn's puppy eyes could make him agree to anything.

"Okay," Finn still looked at him differently, but it was better than when he had walked into the room, so he guessed he would take it, "Uh... Santana kind of blurted it out to pretty much everyone in glee except Quinn, Mike, Artie and Tina so... I mean, I think everyone felt bad that they didn't really notice, so they may act a bit weird around you if they see you this summer."

"Yeah, well screw them if they do. I don't really care much what most of them think anyway. I know Berry's going to go nuts at me at some point anyway, so I guess it might as well be over this. All of the rest of them don't matter," he hoped Finn didn't pick up on the fact that he was lying- he did care what they thought, but he didn't want Finn worrying about it. There was no point- they were going to think what they were going to think and Finn couldn't change that.

"Yeah Rach was pretty upset about it," Finn admitted.

"As long as she doesn't decide to sing at me to 'make me feel better' or some crap like that, it's all good," Finn looked a bit shifty- damn, Berry had been planning a song about it all. That girl really needed to learn when to put a lid on that crazy talent of hers, "Anyway, I should probably head back- Beth's taking a nap but I want to get back before she wakes up so I can help out. Is Burt around? I kind of need to talk to him about something." Finn looked a little disappointed that he was leaving, but didn't push. Puck figured that he knew that he had pushed his luck concerning the whole 'depression' topic, so he didn't want to stuff up the tenuous peace that they had managed to make.

"Uh I think he's at the garage. Kurt would know," Puck weighed up the pros and cons of making the effort of asking Kurt and decided it would be more trouble than it was worth.

"I think I'll just drop by the garage later, or call. I don't really feel like talking about this with Kurt right now, and knowing him, he'll say something... no offense. I like the guy, but... just later, okay?" he avoided looking back at Finn, knowing that his friend probably wasn't happy with that answer, but not having the energy to care about it. He just wanted to go back to Quinn's place and spend time with his girls (he wasn't going to lie- he wished Quinn was his girl and as long as he didn't ever say it out loud, he always thought of her that way).

"Alright, I'll see you later. Say hi to Beth and Quinn for me," Finn accompanied him out the door and Puck was relieved to see that Kurt had disappeared. He didn't want to have another awkward encounter with the boy today- he would fix it another time.

He left Finn's feeling better than he had when he had hung up on Santana, but not as happy as he had before her call. He hated it when the shit in his life caught up with him- it always did and he never learnt his lesson. As he pulled away from Finn's house he decided to call in at Burt's after all. If he wanted to learn from the past and move forward, he was going to have to make sure he had something to work with.

* * *

><p>Quinn tidied up the kitchen a bit after Puck left, partly to waste time until Beth woke up (it kind of scared her how quickly her life had come to centre around her little girl- she almost didn't know what to do when Beth was asleep) and partly because cleaning always helped her think.<p>

She was worrying about two different issues. Firstly, she still hadn't really gotten over that moment in the kitchen with Beth that morning, when she had asked for her mother. She hadn't told Puck about it- it seemed silly- but she worried that Beth missed Shelby and would never be able to see Quinn as being her real mother, as she hadn't been there for the first year of her life. Beth hadn't seemed to be too upset by all of the changes in her life so far- which was a good thing- but Quinn was just waiting for that bubble to pop and for everything to go wrong.

It felt so silly for her to worry about all of this from just one word. She didn't even know if Beth had been asking after Shelby or had just mashed two syllables together and changed her inflection. She had read somewhere for her psychology class at school that babies often experimented with language around one year of age, and so it was possible that she was worrying over nothing. But still... Beth had just been through a major change. She had lived with Shelby for the past year- surely she should be more upset and fussy about the change? It wasn't that Quinn wanted her to be, but surely this wasn't normal?

She supposed that maybe some part of Beth still remembered her from the womb and from her first few hours of life, but Quinn kind of doubted that. It was possible that Beth felt some sort of mother-daughter connection with her (Quinn definitely felt something like that for Beth) but it was impossible to know. And since Beth was so young, it wasn't like she could just ask her about all of this. So she worried that she was never going to be good enough to replace Shelby in Beth's heart (and it really did sound stupid when she said it to herself in her head).

The second issue was all to do with Puck. He had been in a really good mood all morning. After the tickle war with Beth they had sat around and played with her and talked to her (Puck kept on pointing to himself and emphasising the word 'papa' and then telling Beth not to worry about the word for mother- it was her own fault that that hurt because she hadn't told him about what had happened earlier). Judy had popped down and said a quick hello to them all before heading off to work and they had continued to play around all morning.

Puck had done the second diaper change of the morning and it had almost ended up in disaster- he had stuck a couple of the tabs in the wrong order- but luckily Quinn had noticed before Beth's pants fell down. Puck had laughed at his mistake and told her that he knew that something like that would happen, but he got it right when he fixed it, so there was no drama now. He had been in a good mood the whole time- until he got that phone call.

She wasn't stupid- whatever Santana had said, it had rattled him. The darkness that she had seen hovering around him during the year had crept back and the happiness she had seen had almost completely disappeared. He had said something about talking to Finn. She had no clue what Santana and Finn would have to do with anything- especially as the only thing that the two had in common outside of glee was Puck- and it worried her that whatever it was, he wouldn't tell her.

She knew that they hadn't exactly been close this past year, but she had thought that if anything serious came up, he would be able to talk about it with her. That wasn't really true though- she had only really felt that way since she and Finn had broken up, but still that had been almost two months ago.

She remembered a time when he had told her everything- or at least as much as he would ever say to anyone at least. Puck wasn't really one to talk about feelings- he would talk about other people's feelings, but his own were generally off limits. But at various points whilst they had been together he had opened up a bit more. He had admitted that he was scared about what was going to happen about the baby- not in those words of course, because 'Puckasaurus isn't afraid of anything'- but he had still gotten that point across.

She had told him a lot more than she would have told anyone else too- explaining how free she felt away from her parents, but also how lost she was with everything. He hadn't always had the best advice or said the right thing- in fact she had often ended up yelling at him for being offensive- but she had never been so real, so close with anyone before and she had to admit that she missed it, missed him, a lot.

She hoped that whatever it was that was bothering him, whatever Santana had told him, would go away after he had this talk with Finn, because quite frankly that darkness she saw within him scared her. She couldn't help but be curious as to what Santana could have possibly said that would upset him so much. She knew that he and Santana were close- she thought that their friendship was the strangest kind of friendship ever, but then again, any type of relationship with Santana was strange- but she knew it was pretty strong. So Santana probably had a lot of dirt on Puck, so it was possible that she had spilled one of his secrets and now he was doing damage control. Whatever it was, she didn't like it. She wanted Puck to be happy, and whatever it was Santana had done, it was stopping that from happening.

Once she had finished in the kitchen, she went back into the living room. She picked up the bag of Beth's belongings and decided to put the rest of it away. She had taken out Beth's clothes the day before and packed them away in the closet upstairs, but there were still a few things in the bag. There were a couple of picture books that she put in two piles- one to keep downstairs next to the couch and one to take up and put in Beth's room, ready for reading at bedtime.

There were also a few more toys that she hadn't lifted out earlier- another teddy bear and what looked like a Tonka truck. (From the different types of toys she figured Shelby must have been letting Beth make up her own mind as to what she liked, which Quinn was grateful for). There was also a mini easel- it came with some finger paints- that looked like it had been used a couple of times, as there was paint dripped all over it. She wasn't too keen to try finger painting with a one year old, but figured she would maybe try once she knew what she was doing a little better. She put all of the toys away in a big box they had purchased for this very thing and then realised she had nothing to do.

She glanced at her watch to find that barely twenty minutes had passed since they had put Beth down for her nap. She sat on the couch and flipped on the TV, but nothing interesting was on. She considered putting in a movie, but it would run for longer than Beth was going to sleep and she didn't see the point in starting something she wasn't going to finish.

She wanted to do something though- she knew that when school started again and Beth was a bit older time to herself was going to be scarce- she just didn't know what she could do. She was saved from pondering the question further by a knock on the door. She was thankful for the distraction- now she not only would have something to do, but it would stop her from worrying about Beth and Puck. She knew that it was too soon for Puck to be back- it didn't take long to get to Finn's but she thought that he might be there a while dealing with whatever it was- and then he had to talk to Burt, so she knew it probably wasn't him. She frowned and told herself to ask her mother about getting him a key- if he was going to be coming over a lot to help with Beth, it would probably be best if he didn't have to keep knocking.

"Hi Quinn, we just thought we'd come and see how everything was going," May and Sarah stood on the doorstep. Puck had mentioned that they were going to drop by at some point, but she had totally forgotten about that.

"Hey come on in. Beth's taking a nap at the moment and Puck has gone to talk to Burt Hummel about that apprenticeship, so it's just me at the moment," she led them into the living room and muted the TV. She had never really been alone with May and Sarah before. When she had lived with them, if Puck had been out she had just stayed in his room and avoided the issue. May hadn't really seemed to like her very much so she had stayed out of the woman's way as much as possible. She had spent some time one-on-one with Sarah- she was a sweet girl who clearly worshipped the ground her older brother walked on- but never the two of them together.

"When can we see the baby?" Sarah asked, sounding impatient. She was carrying a small teddy bear and she had a feeling that the girl intended to give it to her niece. It was really cute.

"Beth's sleeping right now, but when she wakes up I'm sure she's going to love meeting her Aunty Sarah," Quinn assured her, "Do you want to watch something on TV? I have a heap of DVDs if there's nothing you want to watch on there." Sarah shrugged, grabbed the remote and hopped onto the couch. Within seconds she was completely absorbed in some cartoon about a boy who protected the world from aliens- at least that's what Quinn thought it was about.

"How about you and I have some tea in the kitchen?" May suggested after checking that Sarah wasn't watching anything she wasn't supposed to (like Gossip Girl- the ten year old had suddenly decided that she was old enough to watch dramas and for some reason, Gossip Girl was the show everyone in her class was hooked on.)

Quinn led the way into the kitchen and put the kettle on to make some tea. She felt really nervous now that she was alone with May. Sarah's presence in the living room had alleviated some of her nerves, but now they were alone she was almost shaking.

"How do you take your tea?" she asked, hoping that her nerves didn't show in her voice. May came up beside her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Relax Quinn; I'm not going to eat you," she said with a smile as she took over preparing the tea, "I'm aware of the fact that you think I dislike you." Quinn internally winced- she didn't like where this was going.

"I don't think that," she protested weakly. May just shook her head, looking amused.

"Yes, you do. I admit that I didn't react to the news that my son was having a child with a Christian girl very well- I had hoped that Noah would be married and with a steady job before he did that. I know my son pretty well and so I never had any illusions that he would marry a Jewish girl just because I wanted him to. I think I should make it clear now, because I didn't back then, that I never had a problem with the fact that you are not Jewish. It was more that the two of you are so young that I had a problem with," a load that Quinn hadn't even noticed she had been carrying in her heart lifted. She hadn't realised that May's approval meant so much to her, but she felt a lot lighter than she had before coming into the kitchen.

"I don't really blame you for having a problem with that," Quinn assured her. May leant back against the counter. Her eyes had a distant shine to them, as though she was reflecting on past times.

"When Noah came home and told me that he had a) slept with Finn's girlfriend and b) gotten her pregnant, I didn't know what to think. Actually, I was too caught up in the first part of what he said to really hear the second bit. Finn has always been like a brother to him and I couldn't get over the fact that he had betrayed him so badly by sleeping with you. And then I realised he had said that he had gotten you pregnant and all thoughts about him and Finn went right out the window. I was so angry at him, and you, for making such a silly mistake. My thoughts on the issue have changed quite a bit since then, but at the time I just couldn't get over the disappointment. I had hoped that Noah would have a much better life than the one I had and to be honest I thought that that would be impossible for him after becoming a father at sixteen," May's honesty was refreshing, but it was also making her feel incredibly guilty. It wasn't entirely Puck's fault that he had gotten her pregnant and it hurt her to think that she had helped screw up his life as well as her own (although her life seemed pretty good right at that moment).

"I'm sorry," she squeezed in when May paused. May looked startled at the apology.

"It's not your fault sweetie," she said kindly, "We all make mistakes and Noah was just as responsible for it as you were, if not more. As I said I know my son."

"Well, as for the thing about me being Finn's girlfriend at the time... P-Noah said that he and Finn probably weren't going to be friends in a couple of years anyway, so it was worth the risk," May sighed as she heard that, looking a bit sad.

"Ever since my ex-husband walked out on us, Noah has had trust and abandonment issues. I wasn't really around much after Zach left and Noah started distancing himself from people after that. I think that he thinks on some level that it was his fault Zach left us- which is bullshit because Zach was just not a good person- and so he has this belief that he is going to screw up at some point with the people he cares about and that they're going to leave as a result. Sometimes I think that's why he does some of the stupid things he has- because he wants to leave everyone before they leave him," Quinn nodded, remembering his logic for sexting Santana again.

"He's said something along those lines to me before," she confirmed at May's questioning look. The comment caused May to frown and bite her lip and she knew that something she had said had either clarified something or was a point of concern for the mother of two. The kettle whistled and May jumped. Shaking her head she poured the boiling water into the teapot and played idly with the teabags, "Is there something wrong?" Quinn asked when it became clear that May wasn't going to share.

"I want to make it clear that I support the two of you in what you're doing now," May said slowly, still playing with the teabags, "I know I advised you very strongly to give Beth away during your pregnancy, but that was because I was worried that looking after a baby would be too much for the two of you. Noah has always been good with kids- he's been wonderful with Sarah- but a baby is a huge responsibility and he's not always the most responsible person in the world. So that is why I was so against you keeping Beth back then." She took a deep breath and Quinn took the chance.

"I understand all of that- I had always planned on giving Beth up for adoption. As much as I wanted to keep her back then, I know that it wouldn't have been a good mother. But what made you change your mind now?" she had to admit that she was curious. May had been so dead set against keeping Beth that she had been shocked when she had been so supportive the past couple of days. May hesitated a little, but answered the question.

"The past year has been really...tough for Noah," she had that distant look in her eyes again, and Quinn swore that she looked guilty, "I know that you have had a hard year too and I can't imagine how hard it was to give up Beth. I know that I would never have been able to give up Noah or Sarah and I admire you for that. But I still don't really know you well, so I can't know how it has affected you the past year. Noah however... he didn't cope with it very well. I probably should have seen it coming but as well as I thought I knew him... anyway with juvie and the revelations that came with it... I mean, he was getting better but I have never seen him as happy as he has been the past day and a half with you and Beth. I know that it's not necessarily going to be all sunshine and roses from here on, but having Beth around makes Noah happy and I will do anything to make sure that he stays that way." There were so many questions Quinn wanted to ask, but she held her tongue while May poured the tea. They moved over to the dining room table and she tried to organise the questions in her head.

"You said something about the revelations made when he went to juvie?" she hoped that May didn't think that she was being too nosy. She felt like she was, but she just didn't like the sound of that and she was already worrying about him anyway. May froze with her mug halfway to her lips. She hesitated before putting the mug back on the table.

"I thought Noah would've told you but if he hasn't, you're going to have to wait until he does. It's not my place to talk about that. Please don't worry about it. He'll tell you when he's ready. I would tell you but Noah wouldn't appreciate it and it's my job to do what's best for him, as much as I want to say something," May sounded apologetic. It made Quinn even more curious about the situation, but she had to respect May's wishes. She told herself firmly that she would ask Puck about it when she was sure that he trusted her again. She knew that it might take a while, but she wanted to be someone he could rely on again.

"He's lucky to have you as a mother," she told May truthfully, wishing that her mother would worry about her as much as May seemed to worry about Puck. She knew her mother loved her in her own way, but she had so much trouble showing it. May's love for Puck was written all over her face and she knew that May showed Puck that she cared every day. Judy wasn't so forthcoming with her emotions.

"Thank you for saying that, but I know that I've made a lot of mistakes. Motherhood isn't easy and sometimes you're going to screw up. The important thing to remember is that if you do, you just have to do everything in your power to try to fix it. Never let Beth get too far away from you, otherwise you might lose her," May told her seriously, her eyes again looking distant. She wondered what May could possibly be remembering that would make her look so sad, but she didn't want to pry.

"Did Noah tell you much about the apprenticeship at Burt's garage?" she asked, wanting to get off this gloomy topic. She was still feeling better than she had before she had gone into the kitchen- May's apparent approval of her taking that load off her shoulders- but she was still worried about the whole Beth-Shelby thing and Puck's weird mood change. She considered talking to May about the Beth-Shelby issue, but promptly dismissed it. May had too much going on with her job and Sarah and Noah- she didn't need to worry about Quinn's silliness as well.

From there the two of them had a nice discussion about the future and how everything was going to work. Quinn emphasised that May and Sarah were always welcome to come over and visit Beth at any time, and mentioned that she wanted to give Puck a key. May told Quinn that she was welcome at their house anytime too, and if Beth ever needed to stay at the Puckerman house, all she had to do was ask. May also promised that they would make sure that they contributed to the costs that Beth would add to the Fabray household. Puck was getting a job, which would definitely help, but May said that she wanted to contribute something too- Beth was her granddaughter after all. Quinn had tried to protest, but May wasn't listening.

They were talking about how they were going to figure out holidays when there was a knock at the door. She knew that Hanukah and Christmas were a long way away, but it was always good to plan in advance. She was finishing her sentence and getting up to answer the door when Puck walked into the room.

"Uh, Sarah let me in. I told her that it was pretty rude to answer the door at someone else's house and she just shrugged and said that she heard my truck, so she knew it was me," he explained, taking a seat opposite his mother at the table. He looked a little better than he had when he left, but she could still sense some of that darkness.

"Are you okay?" May asked, beating Quinn to the question. Puck nodded, though he didn't look either of them in the eye.

"I'm good. Burt says that I can start working at the garage on Monday. Through the summer I'll have at least four hours a day there, and then once school starts I'll work Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights, as well as weekends, so it should be pretty good," it sounded like a lot to Quinn, but she supposed that if it got to be too much, he could always cut down the amount of hours. Burt was a pretty decent guy and she was sure that he wouldn't let Puck overwork himself.

"That sounds pretty good. Did you talk to Finn?" he blinked, as though he hadn't expected her to remember where he had said he was going (or maybe he had forgotten that he had said it).

"Uh yeah," May frowned.

"What did you need to talk to Finn about?" she enquired, knowing that the boy had been around yesterday. Puck shrugged.

"He was upset about something Santana said and I had to go do damage control," May's face darkened at Santana's name and she turned to Quinn.

"I hate that girl," she told her straight out, "I'm not going to hide it. She makes me very nervous."

"Yeah, well she's not my favourite person at the moment so you're not going to have to deal with her for a while," Puck told her quickly before heading to the kitchen. She heard him grab a glass from the cupboard, and he came back carrying a glass of water. Quinn wished that she knew what was going on, but if Puck was angry at Santana for spilling something to Finn, there was no way she would get the Latina to tell her what it was. Santana may have been nice to her when they were in New York, but she had made it very clear that she was on Puck's side on the whole Quick break-up.

"Well that's a relief," May joked, but Quinn got the feeling that the woman wasn't as happy with the news as she appeared. Santana had always been a good friend of Puck's, and it was clear that he trusted her. May had mentioned that Puck had trust issues- maybe she was worried that this break of contact with Santana would screw his issues with trust up even more?

They sat around and made small talk for another few minutes before Puck excused himself, saying that he was going to check on Beth. She hoped that spending time with his daughter, even just watching her sleep, would make some of that darkness disappear.

"Damn that girl," May cursed once Puck had disappeared upstairs, "She always stuffs everything up. You saw that something was bothering him, didn't you? I could see you worrying about it." She didn't see the point in denying it.

"He got a call from Santana just after we put Beth down for a nap. I didn't hear what she said, but he wasn't happy with her. He looked really down before he left. He looks a bit better now but it's still there," May didn't say anything for a few moments and sipped the last bit of her tea.

"I know it must be frustrating for you, because you don't know what's going on, but please trust me when I say that it'll be better for everyone if you hear it from him. I know you care a lot about him and I know everything between the two of you is really complicated but please... just don't give up on him. Noah cares a lot about you- you are the mother of his child and that means that you two will always have a special connection- and you need to remember that. He's not the easiest person to understand, but I know that he will do everything he can to make sure that you and Beth are okay. Please remember that I've said this and don't give up on him, please," Quinn was a bit freaked out by the heartfelt plea, but nodded. Something serious was obviously going on with Puck and she desperately wanted to know what it was, but May had a point. She had to wait until he told her.

"Okay," she felt that she needed to give a verbal agreement. She felt as though she needed to get out of the room, the seriousness making her feel uncomfortable, "I'll uh... go check on Beth too. It has been a while since we put her down for a nap and I want to make sure that she goes to bed a little earlier tonight than she did last night. She did get up early this morning but I think that was more because she had a nap too late yesterday. I want to try to get her in the habit of waking up before three from her nap so that when school starts she'll be awake when we get home so we can spend some time with her." She was rambling a little, but she couldn't help it. She slowly made her way out of the room as she was speaking; knowing that it was a bit rude but her desire to leave overrode her politeness.

"Okay, I'll go sit with Sarah. Come down when Beth's awake," May didn't seem offended that Quinn was being rude; she almost seemed as happy to have the tension in the room gone as Quinn was.

Quinn quickly left the room and climbed the stairs. She stopped at the top and leant back against the wall, feeling everything crash down on her. When she had made the decision to take Beth back, all she had been thinking about (if she was honest) was how great it would be to see her daughter again. She had forgotten that keeping Beth came with a whole heap of strings attached. She hadn't really thought much about how Beth would react to having a new mother (it plagued her mind now she had thought about it, despite Beth not yet having a negative reaction).

She had forgotten that bringing Beth back would mean bringing Puck back into her life in a big way- she had known that he would be there with her to help look after their girl, but when she had imagined it, he had only been there as a shadow, changing nappies and helping put her to sleep without actually saying or doing anything that would impact on Quinn's life in any other way. (Although in her dreams, he did more than that, was more to her, but that was all positive and she never really remembered anything from them except for the warm, positive feeling they gave her.)

She was still happy that she had her daughter back, and she knew (most of the time) that she had made the right decision, but she just wished that the strings attached to her decision weren't as heavy as they seemed.

* * *

><p>As soon as he entered the room where his daughter was sleeping, Puck felt himself relax. There was just something about watching a child sleep that calmed him down- the same thing happened when he watched his sister sleep, although to a lesser extent. (And yes, he was aware that it was a little creepy that he liked watching children sleep, but it wasn't like he wanted to molest them or anything- the idea made him sick- he just liked the peaceful innocence they radiated in sleep.)<p>

His talk with Burt had gone well and that had helped him feel a little better, but he had still been on edge when talking to Quinn and his mother in the kitchen and he knew that they had both picked up on it. That meant that his mother was going to be worrying about him again and the thought of that had just made everything worse and so he hadn't been able to stay down there very long. He _hated_ worrying other people- he wasn't worth it. He knew that he was a screw-up and had accepted that fact a long time ago- probably around the time his dad had up and left, when his mother had still been pregnant with Sarah. He hated when others worried about him because it hurt them and then he would do something stupid and hurt them even more and... he just wished they would stop.

"Baba boo!" he blinked to find Beth's eyes open wide, staring straight at him. She was standing in the crib, her tiny hands wrapped around the bars. He hadn't even noticed that she had moved- he was really off his game.

"Hey B, have a good sleep?" she tilted her head to one side, as though considering his question.

"Uppy!" she demanded, putting her arms up in the air. He chuckled before scooping her up from the crib. She immediately grabbed his nose.

"You know, you really should learn to say 'please'. You can't just go around demanding things all the time," he told her as he felt around the bottom of her diaper, trying to gauge if she needed a diaper change or not, "And seriously, 'uppy', although very cute, is not a word. Now, if it were up to me it would be, 'cause you make it sound so cute, but I don't think your mummy- or Berry for that matter- would like me telling you that you can use it, so next time just say 'up', okay? Then it makes me look like a good dad 'cause I'm correcting your grammar or something, right? If you do, I'll... uh... well; we can figure that out later, but it'll be good, I promise." Beth didn't appear to be listening- she had let go of his nose, but was now tugging on his ear. It didn't hurt so he just let her.

"Oh, she's awake," Quinn entered the room, smiling at Beth and looking almost cautiously at him, as though she was trying to sense his mood or something. She didn't look at him as though he was about to break, so he supposed that she didn't know what was going on, but it still unnerved him a little.

"Uh yeah, she just got up. I was trying to figure out if she needs a new diaper or not," Quinn immediately came over and tested Beth's diaper herself. She was standing so close that he could smell the strawberries in her shampoo and it made him forget the way she had looked at him when she had entered the room. After a moment she stepped back.

"I don't _think_ that it needs changing," she said, looking a bit unsure, "I'm pretty sure she'd let us know if it did." He was happy with that. He was cool with not having to change the diaper- he had screwed it up last time and he wasn't keen to screw it up again so soon.

"Alright B, you want to go meet your Aunty Sarah?" he wasn't all that keen to go down and see his mother so soon, but Sarah had asked him when she had let him in when she would get to see Beth and he hated denying his sister anything. Besides he figured that he could use Beth as a buffer if he had to. There was also the plus that just being around Beth made him happy and he knew that his mother would want to avoid taking that away.

"I think that would be a good idea," Quinn said, watching intently as Beth lost interest in his ear and started to struggle a little in his arms, obviously wanting to run around, "We'd better get her downstairs before she tries to do it herself. She may be good at walking but I think the stairs are a little much for her for the moment." Beth was starting to really struggle now, and he had to agree with her.

"Just hang on a minute B. I'll put you down when we get to Aunty Sarah, okay?" the little girl either didn't understand him (which was probable) or she didn't care, because she didn't stop. He was managing to hold her quite easily- he was pretty strong and he had spent a lot of time carrying and wrestling with Sarah when she was younger- but he wanted to get downstairs as quickly as possible just in case. He carefully made his way down the stairs, trying to keep an eye on his daughter and where he was putting his feet at the same time. Quinn followed, seeming to hold her breath as she watched Beth's struggles.

As soon as he hit bottom of the stairs, he let Beth go. He figured that she was so eager to get away that she would run in any direction except for towards the stairs, so she would be pretty safe. He was right- as soon as she was on the ground she started to wander off towards the kitchen. He followed her slowly, letting her explore without letting her get too far away. Every few steps she looked over her shoulder, as though she was making sure he was following. He pretended to try to catch her and she squealed and walked sideways to avoid his arms.

"Aww, don't you love me B? I'm going to catch you," he made a big show of trying to catch her again; deliberately missing her and she squealed with laughter as she ducked out of the way. She took a few steps forward and almost seemed to wait for him to try to catch her again before trying to jump out of the way. Her coordination wasn't quite up for jumping yet though and she overbalanced and fell backwards onto her butt. She looked shocked for a moment, as though the world had cheated her. Her eyes were open wide and her mouth was open in a perfect circle. Then she started to cry.

"Hey B don't cry. I know it hurt, but you'll be okay," he panicked at her tears, but raced to pick her up. He automatically rubbed her back- not knowing if it would help but doing it instinctively. He had never really had any idea how to handle it when a girl burst into tears on him. He hated it. Every one of Beth's tears made his heart ache. He knew that she was okay and that it wasn't his fault that she was hurt, but he couldn't stop himself from feeling guilty.

"What happened?" Quinn hadn't followed them into the kitchen- she had gone to tell Sarah and his mother that they were coming- and so she had missed what had happened. She was closely followed by May and Sarah, who was staring at Beth like she was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.

"She looks like a Quinn-doll," Sarah said before Puck had a chance to explain. He ignored his sister's comment for now and felt like he had to defend himself to the two other women in the room. They weren't exactly accusing him of anything, but they didn't look happy.

"She tried to jump and fell on her butt," he explained, feeling Beth start to calm down as she finally realised that she wasn't hurt, "I think it startled her more than anything. She's pretty convinced that she's invincible and so the shock of falling upset her I guess." Quinn didn't look overly convinced with his answer and he could almost hear the argument she was having with herself in her head. He knew that she was telling herself to back off and believe him, but her motherly instinct was probably telling her that she needed to check Beth over herself and make sure that she really wasn't injured. He decided to help her out, "Here, you can probably calm her down quicker than I can. I'm not very good at dealing with crying."

His excuse was pretty lame- Beth had almost calmed down now. A couple of tears were still making their way down her cheeks and her breathing was still a little stunted, but it was obvious that she was calming. Quinn looked a little embarrassed, like she had figured out that he knew what she wanted to do, but didn't say anything. She tried to discreetly run her hands over Beth's arms and legs, but wasn't too successful at hiding her actions.

"She stopped crying," Sarah commented and he got the feeling she was a bit annoyed that no one was paying attention to her. She was only ten years old after all, and she was used to being babied because she was the youngest. Now she had a baby to compete with and she didn't seem to like it.

"Hey Sar, why don't you try giving Beth the present that you brought? I reckon she's going to love it and it'll make her smile," he hoped that once she saw Beth's smile she would be as in love with the little girl as he was and get over this little jealousy that seemed to have sprouted up, "You'll be her favourite Aunt and I bet she'll love playing with you." Sarah perked up a bit at having the important job of making Beth smile and May winked at him in approval. Quinn sensed that Sarah's interaction with Beth would go better if the infant was on the ground, so she set Beth down gently on the floor.

Sarah had been carrying the bear around with her the whole time she had been at Quinn's house, so she didn't have to leave to go get it. She approached the toddler slowly. Beth looked up at Quinn curiously, as though wondering why her mother had left her on the ground when she was still upset. Puck could tell that Quinn wanted to pick her up again to fully soothe her, but was restraining herself for Sarah. He felt a wave of gratitude towards her- he was lucky that she was so kind-hearted and thoughtful to see that Sarah needed to do this.

"Hi," Sarah crouched down so that her eyes were at the same level as Beth's. The toddler gave her the same penetrating look she seemed to give all newcomers. Sarah thrust the teddy bear out towards the little girl, "This is Beebear. Noah gave him to me when I was little and he told me that Beebear is a monster fighter. Beebear protected me from the monsters but I don't need him anymore 'cause I'm big now, but you're little so I think that you should keep him so that the monsters don't get you."

Now that Sarah had reminded him, the bear did look familiar. He had completely forgotten about it- he had given that to Sarah when she had been four and convinced that there was a green, one-eyed monster that lived under her bed and wanted to eat her. The bear had been an impulsive thing- he had been tired and he was sick of being woken up every night by her running screaming into his room. He was surprised that she had kept it all of these years, and that she had remembered what he had said.

Beth stared at the teddy bear for a moment before reaching it and taking it from her Aunt. She roamed her tiny hands over the bear's fur, pulling on each of the bear's limbs, as though making sure that they were real. She seemed to especially like the bear's nose. After a few seconds of holding it, she promptly stuck the bear's ear in her mouth. Quinn and May were watching the scene with weird looks on their faces- he was sure that they weren't upset, but both had tears in their eyes.

"No, don't eat him!" Sarah exclaimed, pulling the bear out of Beth's grip, "He won't be able to fight the monsters if you break him!" Beth didn't like the fact that she had been given a new toy only have it ripped from her arms. Her little face scrunched up and turned red and she burst into tears. Sarah looked between the girl and the bear in astonishment. Puck knew that she hadn't realised that Beth couldn't understand what she was saying.

"Sarah why don't you try giving her the bear back?" May suggested. Puck knew that wasn't going to work. Sarah was starting to get upset now- tears were welling up in her eyes as she saw only the fact that Beth had rejected her and Beebear. Beth began wailing, throwing her tiny fists around in the air and screaming as she tried to express her anger over having her toy stolen. Sarah took a few steps backwards away from her niece before turning and fleeing the room, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Hey Beth, shh it's okay. Come on honey, calm down," Quinn had dropped down to the floor next to Beth as soon as Sarah had fled. She scooped Beth onto her lap, ignoring the fists that were pounding on her arms and chest as Beth continued to display her outrage. May was staring at the door Sarah had disappeared through, chewing her lip as she worried about what she was going to say. He glanced again at his daughter and knew that Quinn had the situation under control. She was talking softly to Beth, who was still flailing her arms and crying, but it seemed less somehow. He knew that he wouldn't be much help there, and Quinn was handling it.

He knew that Sarah was really upset. He hadn't been around at home the past few days and he had been acting strangely all year and he knew that it had affected her. He was the only father-figure she had in her life, despite the fact that he was just her older brother, and she looked up to him a lot. He knew that his behaviour the past year had at times both confused and scared her. He had been so distant from her at times that he had barely known what she was doing in school and now that he had Beth he guessed that she was struggling even more. She was probably thinking that he loved Beth more than her because he was leaving her at home and spending time with Beth and she was only ten so he didn't blame her for it. Making up his mind, he left Quinn and his mother to deal with Beth and went to find his sister.

It took a little bit of searching, but he eventually found her. She was sitting, hugging her knees to her chest, in the corner of Beth's room, her face leaning on the top of her knees. Her shoulders were shaking as she sobbed. Beebear was lying on the floor halfway between the door and the corner, obviously abandoned as the girl's emotions got to be too much for her. Puck picked Beebear up off the floor before taking a seat next to Sarah, leaning against the wall. He didn't say anything for a few moments. He just sat, turning Beebear over and over in his hands as he tried to figure out something he could say to make all of this right.

"Sh-She hates me!" his sister cried before he could figure out what to say. She turned her head so that he could see her face. Her brown eyes looked so sad and they were all watery and red with her tears and everything about her face screamed sorrow and guilt and he reacted automatically. He reached out and pulled her to him, so that she was pressed up to his side. He used his other hand to reach out and gently tilt her chin so that she was looking at him.

"Hey, don't let me hear you say that again. Beth doesn't hate you; she was just upset that you took Beebear away from her. She is too little to understand what you said to her, so she thought that you were stealing him away and she wanted to play with him, that's all," he told her, keeping his voice as soft as he could. She shook her head to get away from his hand and pushed her face into her knees again.

"I made her cry and now you and Quinn probably hate me 'cause she's crying and she looks really hurt and I just didn't want her to break him! You told me that she is my niece and that means that I have to look after her and so I gave her Beebear so he could protect her and she was hurting him and I didn't want her to break him so he couldn't protect her and now... and now you're going to yell at me 'cause I didn't do my job properly," he had a feeling that she hadn't listened to what he said. He sighed, hating himself for putting her through all of this. If he wasn't such a screw-up of an older brother, she wouldn't have had to deal with having a niece who wasn't even a decade younger than her.

"I'm not going to yell at you. What happened wasn't your fault, okay? I should have told you that Beth doesn't really understand talking yet. And I know you just wanted to make sure that Beebear didn't get hurt," he hoped she was listening this time- he hated seeing her cry and knowing that it was because of something he had done (i.e. having a daughter) made it a million times worse, "I know that I haven't been around much lately, but I will always love you, silly. You're my baby sister and I will do anything for you- you should know that by now. I'm not going to stop loving you just 'cause Beth is here now. And Quinn isn't mad at you. She adores you- thinks you're the sweetest little sister in the whole wide world. We're not mad at you and we love you." He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead, before repeating his last sentence over and over.

His words didn't seem to have much of an effect at first. Sarah continued to sob and she held herself tightly, as if trying to maximise the distance between them. Finally, after what seemed like eternity but was probably only five minutes, she relaxed against him and her sobs started to die off.

"You promise?" she finally asked, pulling away from him and rubbing her eyes with her arm. He reached out and messed up her hair- something he had done since she had been about three years old.

"I promise," he passed Beebear to her from his spot on the floor, "Now, why don't we go give Beth her monster killer back, okay? Just remember that she doesn't really understand words yet. If she starts chewing on him, it'll be okay. Beebear is tough- you probably don't remember, but you used to chew on him too, and he still saved you from the monsters, right?" She hesitated, biting her lip and looking at Beebear as if she was going to refuse, but after a moment she nodded.

"Okay," she climbed to her feet and he quickly followed. She didn't move from her spot in the corner, waiting for him to take the lead. He slipped his hand around hers and slowly started to lead them towards the door. She still looked troubled and he hated it. He wanted her to smile.

"How about we go down to the ice cream parlour and get some ice-cream after we go see Beth?" he asked, using his secret make-Sarah-smile weapon, "You can get any flavour you want, just you and me." It worked like a charm. Although the word ice-cream hadn't affected her as much as it usually did, her bright smile appeared at the mention of it just being the two of them. His suspicions had been right. His baby sister had missed him.

"I can get cookies and cream?" she asked excitedly, the only sign of her previous tears being her red-rimmed eyes. He knew that his mother probably wouldn't be too happy with him for letting her have something with so much sugar, but he nodded anyway. Sarah practically skipped down the stairs and back to the spot they had left the others.

Beth was now happily pushing around what looked like a Tonka truck, making some sort of growling sound which he guessed was her attempt at mimicking an engine. Quinn was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to her, looking amused at Beth's version of playing cars. May was leaning against the wall, her eyes flickering between the door and where Beth sat playing. He knew that she was worrying about what was happening with Sarah.

"Here you go Beth; Beebear wants to play with you again. You can chew on him if you want; he's tough so he'll be okay," Sarah said in a rush, almost throwing the bear at the little girl. May and Quinn looked on in astonishment as she dumped the bear in the back of Beth's Tonka truck when the toddler didn't immediately take it off her. She then turned back to her brother, "I gave it back to her. Can we go get ice-cream now?" She pleaded. It wasn't exactly what he had hoped for, but he supposed that was his own fault. Sarah was _very_ crazy about ice-cream and so he should really have known better.

"You're going to get ice-cream?" May asked once she got over her surprise at seeing Sarah so bouncy and happy after her reaction before. Sarah nodded eagerly, jumping up and down. Wow... He had obviously underestimated how much he had neglected her the past week or so- she was really keen to spend time with him (he hoped that at least some of her excitement was about that anyway- he didn't think she was quite that enthusiastic about the sugary treat.)

"Hey Sarah, I left my wallet upstairs in Beth's room, why don't you go grab it and then we can go?" the girl barely waited for him to finish his sentence before bounding out of the room. He waited till he heard her on the stairs before shrugging apologetically at his mother, "She was crying and thought I was mad at her." He said to his mother's silent question. May laughed at his guilty expression.

"I think it's sweet," Quinn was looking at him with an expression he had never seen before- it appeared to be a mix of awe, curiosity and something else he couldn't quite name. He vowed to himself to do whatever it was she found so sweet again, just so she would look at him like that again in the future.

"Oh it is sweet," May said in an amused voice, "Just make sure that she doesn't have _too_ much sugar and take your time. She's missed you." She gave him a pointed look, as if trying to tell him that she knew the real reason Sarah was so happy and that it had nothing to do with ice cream. He inwardly sighed at the reminder that he had failed again at being a brother, but nodded to show he understood. Quinn looked a little confused at May's last comment, but Sarah came skidding back into the room, clutching Puck's wallet. He was glad that he really had forgotten it otherwise she would've been pissed.

"Okay, let's go!" she called as she handed it to him. He quickly bent down and patted Beth on the nose- he would've kissed her on her forehead, but there were so many people watching him and he didn't want to make Sarah jealous again- before checking he had his phone.

"Alright, see you later B, Q, Ma," he wondered why he had shortened Quinn's name- he hadn't called her Q in months- but didn't dwell on it. He hoped that she didn't take offense or worry too much about the nickname. He knew she probably wondered why he had done it- she worried about everything sometimes- but he hoped she didn't read too much into it because if she questioned him about it, he wouldn't be able to answer.

He pushed all thoughts of Quinn and Beth out of his mind as he left the Fabray house with his sister. They may be the two most important girls in his life at the moment, but he couldn't forget about the others. As he listened to Sarah chatter on and on about some girl in her class and how she had an ice cream maker so she got to eat ice cream every day, he vowed that he would never let his depression stop him from making sure that all of his girls knew that he loved them.

* * *

><p>Rachel made sure that she timed everything perfectly. Music and drama were all about timing and as she wanted to excel in both of these, it was important that she got the timing of everything else right in her life. So she waited a few days after hearing the revelation about Noah before she confronted him about it.<p>

The way she reasoned it out was that if she confronted him straight away, she would still be too shocked to phrase her words properly and would probably anger Noah more than help him. If she waited too long however, he might think that she wasn't offended that he hadn't come and talked to her about his depression when she was pouring out all of her feelings on the whole Finn-Santana debacle.

That was how she had decided on the time frame of three days. Three days was enough time for her to get over her initial shock over the news, and made sure that her anger over the matter was simmered down to the right consistency- not too potent, but not gone either. It was good in theory, but she knew deep down that she was just too scared to go and confront him straight away because she knew that he was angry Santana had spilled. So she waited until a time she knew that he was going to be home- she had called Quinn around eight p.m. asking if Noah had left to go home. The blonde had sounded perplexed about why Rachel was asking about his whereabouts, but she had answered honestly that he had left once they had put Beth to sleep.

So that was how she found herself standing in front of the Puckerman house at eight thirty at night, staring at the door. She really wanted to knock and go inside- it was roasting out in the night air- but she had suddenly thought that maybe four days was really the right timing and that her anger really hadn't worn down enough to really be at the perfect pitch and-

"What the hell are you doing Berry?" she jumped and whirled around to find Noah standing behind her. She had been so lost in thought that she hadn't heard his truck pull up to the house. In fact, she hadn't even noticed that it hadn't been there when she had arrived. She supposed that it was her own fault for assuming that he would head straight home from Quinn's place.

"Ah, there you are Noah. I was just about to knock," she lied, choosing to ignore his expression of disbelief, "I want to talk to you." He sighed and ran a hand through his Mohawk as though he had seen this coming, didn't really want to do it, but would humour her anyway. Instead of heading inside like Rachel had expected (and hoped- it was hot) he sat down on a large, rounded rock that was next to the path leading to the front door- it was about knee-high so he actually didn't have to look up too much to meet her eyes.

"We can talk out here," he said firmly, cutting her off before she could protest the venue. She looked around the front of the house for somewhere else to sit, but didn't really come up with anywhere. She settled for leaning against the wall of the house- the bricks were at least a little bit cooler than the air felt, "Alright, go for it. I know you're going to ream me out, so let's just get it over with."

"Firstly, I am not going to '_ream you out'_ I just wish that you would be more considerate of others before you make life changing- and especially life _ending_ decisions," he winced at her choice in words and she felt a little proud that she had managed to make him see the seriousness of what he had tried to do, "Secondly I want to say that I am disappointed that you did not confide in me about all of this. I told you all about how I felt about Finn and Santana and you had plenty of opportunities to vent to me as well. I thought we were friends." She had perhaps sounded a bit _too_ hurt on the last sentence- she was really hurt by it all, but she hadn't meant to show just how much. There had to be a balance in a performance- she had learnt at Nationals that showing the full emotions behind a performance was usually not appreciated.

"Hey, I only said that I kind of liked you, not that we were friends," he corrected her, looking irritated already. She had been right- she had put too much emotion in there. She had to do better than this if she ever wanted to make it on Broadway.

"I'm really concerned about you. As co-captain of the glee club it is my duty to ensure the welfare of its members. I obviously haven't been doing that very well considering I didn't even know that you had tried to kill yourself," she hoped that by sounding more reasonable he would open up a bit more. She knew it was a gamble- she was trying to guilt him into talking to her in a way- but it would be worth it if it paid off. He muttered something under his breath.

"Look, like I told Finn, it was a stupid decision and I'm glad that it didn't work, okay? I'm fine now, I swear. I'm on medication and it works most of the time and I'm not going to go kill myself, I promise. I didn't see the point of talking about it all before and I still don't see why it is any of your business, but I've already promised Finn that I'll go to his place if I need to and that's the best I can do, okay?" the speech sounded a little rehearsed, as though he had said this before and was resigned to saying it again at some point soon.

"I am aware that you are taking antidepressants but Santana said that you had told her that they weren't working and one of my dads studied psychology at college and he still has a keen interest in the topic and so I borrowed one of his textbooks and it said that one of the best ways to deal with depression was to talk about it. I know that everything with Quinn and Beth last year really sucked for you and so I understand that it may have gotten too much for you-

"You don't know shit," he cut in angrily. She tried to protest the interruption, but he continued on before she could speak, "Everyone keeps on going on and on about how this must be Quinn's fault; Santana, Finn, the people at that stupid juvie school- but it's not. The first time I tried to kill myself I was fucking twelve and I took five sleeping pills and chased it down with a can of beer, convinced that it would kill me. I woke up with a killer headache and vomit dripping down my face and then bragged to Finn the next day that I got to drink beer. Don't fucking assume you know everything because you have no fucking _clue_ so just leave it alone!" He jumped up off the rock and paced a couple of steps up and down on the lawn.

Rachel found that she couldn't speak. She was shaking. What was she supposed to say to that? Finn had told her that the convenience store had been the only time Noah had done anything dangerous. He hadn't told her much about his conversation with Noah, but she had been convinced that his depression had been a new thing, likely set off by the whole giving-a-baby-up-for-adoption thing and she had understood that. She could understand how losing Beth could have caused him to fall into depression, but she didn't understand how he could have wanted to die at such a young age. It didn't make any sense to her at all- as far as she knew his life had been pretty good at that point in time- sure his dad had left, but he had been popular in school and his mother and sister were really loving and caring. So why would he have wanted to die?

"You're right- I don't understand," she finally managed to say, feeling like a five year old who had been scolded by her father, "I don't know much about depression and I will rectify that, but it would be a lot easier for everyone to understand if you would just tell us about it. We're your friends Noah, we care about you and we want to help. We all noticed that you were acting a little weirdly last year but we didn't know what was going on and so we left it alone. If you had actually hurt yourself in that accident, how do you think we would have felt? It would have killed Quinn once she figured it out- she would have blamed herself for it because she already blames herself for Beth and she is convinced that you hated her last year anyway. And there's also the fact that she cares about you and it would kill her to see you hurt. And then there is Finn. You're like a brother to him and it was bad enough for him to find out that you tried to do it, but if you had succeeded he wouldn't have been able to forgive himself for not being there with you that night and stopping you. And Santana would... well, I'm sure even she would have been upset, despite the fact that she is a soulless heathen who is incapable of human emotion and Artie-"

"Okay I get it!" he cut her off, sinking back onto his rock. She took a breath- she had been ranting so fast that she hadn't really been able to breathe properly. She was still shaking, her emotions going all over the place. She had lost track of where she was supposed to be in her performance- she was going to have to practice that a lot more in the future, "I know why everyone's pissed at me and I know that everyone cares and all that crap. I am trying. I didn't think it was worth saying anything back then, but now I know how much shit everyone is going to give me, I'll talk if I need to, okay? I can't... I can't promise that I'm going to spill everything to everyone but I'll try. I have Beth now so I'm not going to do anything like that again but just in case I'll try." He looked almost defeated, so it didn't feel like the victory she hoped it was. She found herself approaching him and placing a hand on his shoulder. He didn't look up.

"I didn't mean to accuse you of anything Noah. I must admit that before you joined glee, I thought that you were a self-centred bully who thought too much about himself and not enough about others," he made some sort of noise in protest or amusement (she couldn't tell- she hadn't had enough interaction with real people to read them properly) but she continued on before he could comment, "But since I have become acquainted with you and we've become _friends_," she said pointedly, making sure he understood that even though he didn't consider them friends, she did, "I have realised that I was completely wrong about you. I said it before, during that brief confusing time when we dated. You want things too much. You want everyone to stop worrying about you so much that you keep everything locked away and it's hurting you. You need to realise that it's our job, as your friends, to worry about you and that we don't mind doing it."

It was starting to grow quite dark outside- being summer the sun was setting quite late, but it was getting close to nine and although the moon was quite large in the sky, it wasn't giving all that much light. It was making it difficult to see his expression. People in shows never had this trouble- the bright lights of a stage meant that everyone's expressions were constantly on show. She really wished he had let them have this discussion inside.

"Hey, speaking of dealing with feelings, how are you doing with Shelby's death?" the complete change in track caught her unawares. Where on Earth had he pulled that from? They were talking about him- he wasn't allowed to change the script like this on her. She stepped back, feeling completely exposed as her surprise took control of her.

"I-I'm fine. I mean I am not exactly happy that Shelby died before she could apologise to me for her horrible behaviour, but... we're not here to talk about me," he raised an eyebrow at her attempt to change the topic. She had a feeling he was surprised that she didn't want to talk about herself- she knew that she was a drama queen at times (she was very interested in the topic of herself, so she knew what she was) and so it was probably very out of character for her to not want to talk about her feelings, but she just couldn't. It was hard enough to talk to Finn about it- Noah was like a brother to her, but she couldn't admit to him all of the negative feelings she had about the death of her birth mother. He would worry or think bad of her and she didn't want that.

"Yeah, well, come back when you're ready to talk about it, 'cause I don't think it's really fair to be lectured by a hypocrite," with that he stood, completely brushing by her, and entered his house before she could find a way to respond.

She wasn't quite sure what had just happened. It had seemed to be going well- he had listened to her and he had promised to try to talk to people about what was wrong... where had she gone wrong? Had she offended him when she had told him what she had thought about him before he had joined glee? He hadn't seemed to care much about what she thought before... but then again what did she really know about him?

She stood there in front of his house for another few moments, hoping that he would come back outside and she could fix it, but the door remained closed. She just didn't get it. What had she done? She knew that he always said she was annoying... had she gone too far in her attempt to get him to talk? When should she have stopped? Finn had been telling her a lot recently that she needed to know when to stop, but she just couldn't help herself. She knew that she could help him and she knew how to do it (well, she had read up a bit on depression so she had a vague idea anyway) and she couldn't stop herself from trying. Maybe her problem was that she wanted everything too much too.

Once it became clear that Noah wasn't coming out again, she turned to make the short walk back home. She wasn't giving up- she had faced many difficulties in her life and had yet to give up on any of them- but she had to concede that a temporary break was probably needed. She had faced bullies and discrimination from people who couldn't accept that two gay men could raise a child and had never taken a backward step. She had felt discouraged and down and had second guessed herself quite a lot, but she had never given up. She was too determined to show everyone that they were wrong, that she was a superstar and that her dads were the best parents in the world to give up and so far, she was going well. She was not going to give up on Noah, not over this. She just had to get her timing right.

* * *

><p>Quinn took a deep breath, loving the smell of freshly cut grass that always permeated the outside air during the summer months. She was thoroughly enjoying herself. The sun was warm on her skin, there was a nice breeze that was keeping her from feeling too hot and the fresh air was a pleasant change from the stillness of her house.<p>

She and Puck had decided to take Beth to the park. When they had heard the plan for the day, Judy, May and Sarah had instantly demanded to be included in the plans. Quinn wasn't exactly sure what had happened between the siblings the day that Sarah had formally met Beth, but since then Sarah had been acting pretty clingy with her brother, always wanting to be around him. Judy and May just wanted to spend time with their children and granddaughter and since it was a beautiful day, were happy to accompany them to the park, although May did have to leave for work later in the morning.

It wasn't the first time that Quinn had left the house with Beth- they had been shopping a couple of times and they had been for walks, but this felt different somehow- more freeing. She and Beth were currently playing, sitting on a blanket underneath a large oak tree. Puck was pushing his sister on the swings- Sarah had insisted- and May and Judy had wandered off to find some coffee.

"Tada!" Beth said triumphantly as she showed her mother the stack of blocks she had just made. It was a single tower and really it wasn't very impressive, but Beth looked so proud of it that Quinn couldn't stop herself from smiling.

"Very pretty Sweetie," she told the one year old, who was waiting for the praise, "Maybe one day you'll be an architect." Beth's favourite toys so far seemed to be the blocks, so it didn't feel wrong to talk about architecture. Beth grinned- not really recognising the words, but more the tone of praise- before turning around and sending her 'masterpiece' falling to the ground with a single punch, "...maybe not." Quinn muttered to herself as her daughter began to giggle at the mess her blocks made.

"Hey Quinn!" she turned from helping Beth pick up her blocks to see Tina and Mike approaching her from the sidewalk. Tina was carrying a blanket and Mike had a basket- they had obviously come here for a picnic too.

"Hey guys," she greeted them, making sure to keep one eye on Beth to make sure that she didn't wander too far away on her quest to collect all of the blocks, "How's your summer going?" She liked Tina and Mike- they had always been nice to her, even when she hadn't been good to them- and she was dying for some human interaction outside of her family (she included Puck and his family in her family now, only because it was more convenient that way). She had talked to Kurt on the phone a couple of times, and Finn had dropped by a couple of times (but oddly Rachel hadn't been with him either time) but she hadn't really had much contact with anyone else from glee.

"It's been pretty good. Aww, is that Beth? She's so cute!" Tina was obviously distracted by the sight of the toddler, who paused when she heard her name. She turned to face the newcomers, looking curious. She took a step towards them before looking at Quinn, as if asking for permission to see who the new people were.

"Beth, this is your Aunty Tina and that's Uncle Mike," she didn't know why she was introducing all of the glee club members as family, but it seemed to fit so she went with it, "Guys this is Beth." Beth greeted her new family members by throwing the block she held in her arms at them.

"Tada!" she called as the block made its arch through the air. Mike burst out laughing, then tried to hide it by turning it into a cough. Tina was still cooing over how cute Beth was. She knelt down in front of the little girl and hid her face.

"Peek-a-boo!" she called out, removing her hands from her face. Beth looked startled, and stared at Tina in amazement, as though trying to figure out how Tina had managed to 'suddenly appear' in front of her. She looked at Quinn, to see if she was as amazed at this seemingly impossible accomplishment. Quinn tried to match the amazed expression Beth had to see what the toddler would do. Beth turned back to Tina.

"More!" she demanded, her little way of asking for a repeat performance. Tina didn't need to be told twice. She was more than happy to play Peek-a-boo with Beth. Mike rested the basket he was carrying on the ground, knowing that this game could take a while.

"Are you guys out enjoying the sun too?" he asked Quinn as they both watched Tina and Beth play. He was smiling as he watched his girlfriend, an almost wishful expression on his face. Quinn didn't know Mike very well, but she was pretty sure that he loved and belonged with Tina and she privately wondered if he was picturing Tina with a baby of their own one day.

"Yeah, it's a beautiful day so we thought we'd take advantage of it," Quinn agreed, knowing that Mike was using small talk because he didn't really know her well enough to be comfortable with talking about more serious topics, "It was actually Puck's sister's idea. She and Puck are over at the swings." Mike looked surprised and she guessed that he had thought that she and Beth were there alone, or that he just figured her and Puck weren't close enough to be having picnics together in the park.

"Puck has a sister?" was what he asked though, and she couldn't tell if he was genuinely surprised to learn that about Puck (they had been teammates for football for years now so she had assumed that he would've known something so simple about Puck) or if he was just, again, being polite.

"Yeah she's-

She was cut off as Sarah herself appeared, flinging herself onto the rug. She looked curiously at Tina and Mike before deciding that she didn't care about the strangers. She grabbed a bottle of some kind of red sports drink from the esky her mother had brought with them before gulping half of it down in three seconds.

"Oi that was mine!" Puck protested, popping up from behind his sister. Sarah shrugged before taking another sip and poking her tongue out at him. Puck hit her lightly on the back of the head in retaliation before grabbing a blue drink. He grimaced as he read the flavour on the bottle, but it didn't stop him from draining it in less than two seconds, "Ma's going to be pi-mad that you're drinking the red stuff." Sarah just tossed her bottle on the ground before getting up again.

"I'll just tell her it's your fault. I'm going to go play on the monkey bars," and with that she was off again. Puck watched her run off, looking puzzled by her behaviour. Quinn knew that Sarah was normally very sweet and adored her brother- in the past there was no way she would have taken his stuff. Quinn assumed that she must be angry at Puck for something- she had a feeling he knew what was bothering his sister but he wasn't sharing- and that was making her behaviour change radically. She knew it was none of her business, but she hoped that they would sort it all out soon.

"Hey Puck," he jumped at Mike's greeting. He had been so caught up in his sister he hadn't noticed Mike and Tina's presence.

"Hey," he sounded a little confused, but didn't protest the presence of the couple. He watched Tina, who was still playing with Beth. The toddler, at his voice, turned to him before pointing at Tina.

"Gone!" she exclaimed excitedly before gesturing wildly in the air, "Poof!" She turned back to Tina, who was waiting patiently with her hands over her face until she had Beth's attention again, before uncovering her face again. Beth squealed with delight, before turning back to her father to see if he could see how amazing this was.

"Yes B, it's totally amazing," Quinn shot him a 'look' at the slight sarcasm in his voice and hoped that Beth hadn't picked up on it. Mike looked really amused at the whole scene.

"She's really cute," Mike commented, "I didn't know one year olds could talk. She seems pretty smart." Quinn beamed at the compliments. She knew that she didn't know much about toddlers, and that she was biased because Beth was her daughter, but she agreed with Mike- Beth was definitely smart.

"Of course she is," Puck said matter-of-factly, as though anyone who said otherwise was clearly blind. He almost managed to look offended that anyone would think otherwise, "Quinn's really smart so of course B's going to be. Isn't that how the gene-things work?" Quinn hoped they would think her blush was sunburn. She knew that she was reading too much into the compliment and she hoped that Mike and Tina wouldn't assume anything too scandalous from the off-hand comment.

Puck had just been stating something he thought was pure fact, but she knew that with the situation they were in- raising a baby together- people might assume that they had something romantic going on, and they didn't. She knew that Puck had Lauren (who she surprisingly hadn't heard from all summer- she knew that she and Zizes weren't best friends, but five weeks was a long time with no contact. She knew Lauren had gone to some wrestling camp, but she had hoped that they would stay in touch through texts at the very least. Puck hadn't seemed to have had much contact with her either, which was even stranger considering the two of them had been dating for months now.) She just hoped that everyone else remembered that she and Puck weren't together (as much as she secretly, in her heart of hearts, wished that they were.)

"Noah, where's your sister?" May and Judy had arrived back from grabbing their coffee and the area was starting to become a bit crowded as everyone gathered around the game of Peek-a-boo Tina was still playing with Beth. Quinn was glad for the interruption- the conversation could have gotten really awkward.

"She's on the monkey bars, still being all weird," he told his mother, pointing to the exact location of his sister despite the fact that he was facing the other direction. May sighed before grabbing her backpack for work.

"Just keep an eye on her. I'll be home around 9 so make sure that she's ready for bed when I get home," she instructed her eldest, before leaning down to give Beth a quick kiss on the forehead. The toddler squealed with delight and quickly grabbed her grandmother's nose in response to the kiss, before becoming entranced in the peek-a-boo game again. Quinn vowed to play Peek-a-boo with Beth some point soon- she obviously loved it and it would keep her entertained for hours maybe, "Bye Beth, Quinn, I'll see you guys tomorrow." May left for work, and Judy looked a little uncomfortable being the only adult there.

"I'll go watch Sarah," she said quickly, leaving the teenagers alone with Beth. Quinn almost wished her mother would go home. She loved that her mother was being so supportive of them and helping out with Beth, but it was clear that she was uncomfortable in this setting- Quinn could count on one hand the number of times her mother had brought her for a picnic at the park when she was a kid- and it was kind of awkward to hang out with her mother hovering around.

"Hey Ti, we should probably get going," Mike told his girlfriend, giving a small nod of his head towards Quinn and Puck (she had a feeling he believed that there was more to their relationship than they were saying and she felt a little embarrassed that he would think that of her). Tina nodded and quickly messed up Beth's hair as a way to say goodbye. Beth looked sad that the game was over, but Quinn quickly offered her a block and she was distracted.

"Alright guys, enjoy the day. Kurt told me that Rachel is going to try to organise some glee party or rehearsal or something soon, so we'll probably see you then," Tina said cheerfully, leaning over and giving Quinn a quick (and unexpected) hug goodbye. Mike just waved at them both and nodded at Puck in that weird form of guy communication and then the two of them headed off to the other side of the park.

"You know, I always used to think that Artie would get with Tina, but I think those two work better," Quinn almost choked at Puck's comment and he narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously, "What?" He tossed the empty bottle he had been holding into the bag Quinn had organised for their litter and knelt down next to Beth, collecting the blocks that were still scattered across the blanket and handing them to their daughter one by one so she could complete her tower. Quinn lay down and turned so that she was lying on her stomach, with her head resting on her hands, so she could watch them.

"I never thought I'd ever hear you talk about the relationships of the glee club like that," she told him honestly, teasing him a little, "I thought the 'Puckasaurus' was too tough for talking about that kind of thing."

"Hey, if you're a guy you have to be tough to talk about this kind of sh-stuff," he corrected himself at the last minute as he realised where he was, "And Mike's my friend and I'm just glad that he's happy. I mean, Tina is a weird chick and kind of reminds me of a Goth vampire, but Mike obviously loves her so it's all cool. It sucks for Artie though- although he is sort of with Britt I guess and she's hot so..." He trailed off at Quinn's expression, "I mean; she's good for him in that she makes him happy?" He tried to backtrack, but only made it worse because he sounded so uncertain. She decided to let him off the hook.

"I thought Britt was with Santana," she admitted. His expression darkened at the mention of the Latina, but he managed to shrug it off quickly. She still hadn't found out why he was so mad at her best frenemy, but Santana had called him at least once a day since their fight, but he never picked up. (Quinn only knew this because she spent so much time with Puck, and she got curious when she heard his phone ringing and he didn't answer. The ringtone was Alanis Morissette's 'I'm a Bitch' so she knew that it was Santana's calls that he was ignoring.)

"Britt's not the smartest," he said, as though that answered her implied question, "Hey B, want to go play in the sand pit? You can look for buried treasure." He held up the little bucket and spade Quinn had bought on a whim the previous day at the supermarket (they had been right next to the register and she had loved playing in the sand when she had been little, so she hadn't been able to stop herself). Beth tried to grab the spade from Puck's hands, which he took to be a form of agreement with his plan.

"Make sure she doesn't eat too much sand," she warned as he scooped Beth up and headed towards the sand pit.

"I'll watch her, I promise," he assured her before turning his attention back to the toddler. Quinn forced herself to relax. She would have followed them to the sand pit, but she had a feeling Puck wanted to be alone with Beth. He didn't really get much of a chance to be alone with her- he was either working at the garage or cleaning pools (he still had a few customers for that business and he didn't want to really give it up as it was easy money) and when he wasn't busy with work Quinn was always around. She knew that she should probably back off a bit more and let him have some time alone with her, but she found it hard to leave Beth now that she was back in her life.

She knew that it was stupid, but she had this irrational fear that if she let Beth out of her sight for too long, the little girl would be taken away, or she would wake up to find out that Shelby hadn't died and the past couple of weeks had just been a dream. She knew that it was probably connected to her fears that she couldn't replace Shelby in Beth's heart, but she couldn't shake it.

Beth had only called out for her 'mama' once since that time in the kitchen. It had been very early in the morning- Beth usually woke up around seven now, but this had been at around five in the morning. Quinn still slept with the baby monitor next to her pillow, and she had been awoken by Beth's cries. When she had gone into the room, Beth had been crying and rocking herself in the crib, looking extremely miserable. When she had seen Quinn her crying had gotten louder. Quinn had picked her up and tried talking to her, but the little girl hadn't calmed down at all, and had started to say "Mama! Mama! Mama!"over and over again. It had broken Quinn's heart. She had managed to calm her down, but it had taken forever.

She had been surprised that Judy hadn't woken up at the noise, but she was glad that she hadn't. She was hurt that Beth didn't see her as being her mother, and she didn't want anyone to know that even a one year old knew that she was a failure as far as parenting was concerned. She hadn't told Puck about it either- she knew that he had enough to deal with as it was without having her worries and issues to deal with too, especially as they weren't together. She also knew that Beth was coming close to connecting Puck to the word 'dada' and she resented the fact that it was easier for him to find a place in Beth's heart because Shelby had been single and so Beth had had no father figure around.

In a way she felt that she deserved to be shunned a bit by Beth. It had been her choice to give her up for adoption and so it was only fair on some level that she would be replaced more easily than Puck in Beth's life. Shelby had been a great mother and she didn't blame Beth for missing her. No, it was her own fault that her daughter wouldn't call her mama. Still, it hurt and she hated that she couldn't do anything about it.

She tried to empty her mind of all of the worries and just enjoy the fact that she was outdoors with her family. It was a beautiful day and she knew that she should just relax while she had the chance. She had brought a book with her, just in case, and she took it out and sunbathed while reading as she waited for her family to come back to her. After about half an hour, Judy and Sarah returned. Sarah claimed that she was starving, so Judy sent her off to collect Puck and Beth so they could all eat together.

"She built a sandcastle and then totally destroyed this other kid's tower," Puck announced proudly as he settled Beth onto the rug in between himself and Quinn, "The other kid cried too." Sarah laughed and lent over to give her niece a hi-five. Beth smiled and tried to grab Sarah's hand instead of hitting it. Sarah shook her head.

"You're supposed to hit my hand, like this!" she demonstrated what a hi-five was supposed to look like with her other hand. Beth, not understanding, copied her actions and clapped, looking proud of herself. Sarah looked like she was going to protest for a second before shrugging and grabbing a sandwich from the basket, "She really needs to learn to understand words." She told Puck before taking a massive bite. Puck rolled his eyes before picking up the basket and offering it to Quinn. She smiled in thanks and took out a sandwich, passing it to Judy before grabbing one for herself.

"She's working on it," Puck said in Beth's defence, "I remember you not being all that quick to learn to talk when you were her age, so be careful." Quinn had been right- there was definitely something up with Sarah. She made a note to talk to the girl about it when she could get a chance- maybe after lunch. She knew it was probably none of her business, but she had a feeling that Beth was involved and so she felt obligated to at least try to sort things out. She loved Sarah like she was her own little sister and it wasn't right that the girl was upset.

The family sat around and finished lunch. Quinn noticed that Puck tried to keep the conversation focussed on Sarah, asking the girl what she wanted to do for the rest of summer, her opinion on different movies and colours, that sort of thing. She took her cue from him and asked the girl a lot of questions too. Judy busied herself with feeding Beth- Quinn wanted to do it herself, but her mother looked like she needed something to do and so she didn't protest.

Once everyone had finished eating, Sarah again rushed off to play, and Judy insisted on going to keep an eye on her. That left her alone with Puck and Beth again. It was nice and she secretly wished that they could spend more time together like this.

"You know, I still can't get over how tiny she is," Puck said after a few moments where they just watched Beth play. Now that Sarah and Judy were gone and the food was out of the way he was lying on his back, one hand tugging at the grass around them, the other folded up beneath his head. He looked relaxed and that darkness that had hovered around him on and off for the past couple of weeks was gone. She hoped that it wouldn't be back. She looked back at their daughter once she realised that she had been staring at him.

"She's growing so fast though. She won't be this tiny forever," she agreed, quickly catching one of the blocks before it bounced off the rug as Beth knocked her new tower over, "I'm not sure what we're going to do if she has another of her tantrums when she's bigger."

The other night, when they had tried to put her to sleep, Beth had kicked up a big fuss. She had kicked and screamed and grabbed a hold of the bars on the crib, shaking it over and over again after they had put her in it. Puck had finally reached in and grabbed her out, holding her as she kicked and screamed until she calmed down, before putting her back in the crib. They had been too concerned about her hurting herself on the crib to leave her in there whilst having a tantrum of such dramatic proportions.

"Hmm I'll probably just cave and let her have what she wants most of the time," Puck admitted, "I'm not good with crying girls. I'll try to hold out, but I'm pretty sure she's going to win if she brings out the tears." She was a bit disappointed. She had already kind of guessed that she was going to have to be the one to say 'no' to Beth when she wanted things she didn't need. She hated that she was going to be the stricter parent of the two of them, but she couldn't really say that she was surprised by the admission. She wasn't sure that she was going to be able to say no very often however- she was almost as bad as Puck was when it came to Beth's tears. She tried not to let her unhappiness with his confession show.

"Hmm... I'll have to remember to cry next time I want you to do something then," she joked instead. He threw the block he was about to hand to Beth at her head.

"Mine!" Beth shouted in protest as her block- that she had been reaching for- was suddenly thrown out of her reach. She pouted at her father, tears welling up in her eyes. Puck's eyes widened as he realised what he had just done. She could almost hear the curses he was probably throwing around in his head as he quickly found another block to pass to his princess.

"Sorry B, your Mummy was just being very silly and so I had to do it. It's all her fault," Beth took the block from him without smiling, and Quinn liked to think it was because she was on her side with that one.

"She must have heard you say that you can't deal with waterworks," Quinn laughed as Puck gave her the finger when Beth wasn't looking.

"She's definitely your daughter then," he searched around for more blocks, but Beth had already used them all. Her tower was about to topple over anyway- in fact Quinn was thinking Beth wouldn't even need to punch it this time. The breeze picked up slightly and the tower toppled.

Beth didn't like the fact that the tower had fallen without her help. She reached out for Puck, tears welling up in her eyes. "Dada!" She cried before letting out a string of babble that was unintelligible. Both Quinn and Puck froze as they realised what their little girl had just done.

"Did she just...?" Puck couldn't seem to finish the question, but the shock was slowly fading to joy as he realised that Beth knew who he was. The look on his face was so positive and excited that Quinn couldn't help but smile, despite the sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Aww, it's okay Beth. I know it sucks that he's your dad," she joked, trying to act as though she wasn't the slightest bit upset or jealous about Beth's new word. Puck seemed too excited to care. He had pulled Beth to him to give her the hug she wanted, and was rubbing her back gently to soothe her, all with an amazed expression on his face. He didn't appear to hear her comment- she was sure that he would have retaliated if he had.

"She knows who I am!" he couldn't seem to get over that fact. Quinn was still smiling, but it was breaking her heart at the same time, "Hey B, who's that?" He pointed at Quinn. She knew that he meant well- he probably figured that if Beth knew who he was then she surely had to know who Quinn was since she spent more time with her- but she quickly cut in, knowing it wasn't going to work and that it would make her feel worse.

"It's really great that she finally realises she has a dad," she said softly, trying to distract Puck from his task. Beth was still clinging to him, but she wasn't crying anymore. In fact, it almost looked as though she was about to fall asleep in his arms- the pang of jealousy in her heart grew.

Puck looked up from their daughter and studied her for a moment. She held her breath as his eyes landed on her, feeling almost naked under his gaze. She wasn't sure what he saw, but whatever it was made him quickly look away. She thought that he was going to say something about Beth's discovery, but he didn't.

"I think she's about to fall asleep. Maybe we should take her back for her nap? It's almost nap time anyway and that book you threw at me the other day said it was good to keep the naps in a routine, and we don't have her teddy or her blanket here with us," she was relieved that he had dropped the topic, and he did make a good point about Beth. She didn't feel like she could handle it if she heard Beth call him dada again so soon and he had just given her a good out.

"That's a good idea. Why don't you take her back to my house and I'll stay and pack everything up and get Sarah and my mother? That way she hopefully won't fall asleep in the stroller on the way and get cranky," he frowned a little suspiciously at her suddenly letting him have all of this time alone with Beth, but didn't argue. He was only able to frown for a millisecond before the frown was replaced by the silly smile he had been wearing since Beth had called him dada. Obviously he was very proud of her for that, and even his suspicions that she wasn't quite as happy weren't enough to cancel that out.

"Alright," he agreed, gently removing Beth's arms from around his neck (where she had settled for the past minute) so that he could get to his feet without the fear of dropping her. Beth yawned widely and stuck her fist in her mouth. Quinn started gathering all of Beth's toys together- as well as the blocks there was the bucket and spade, as well as a couple of Barbies Sarah had insisted they bring along- and tried to avoid looking at the toddler as she interacted with Puck.

Puck managed to get Beth into the stroller relatively quickly and Quinn felt relieved when they left. It horrified her to think that she could feel this way about her daughter- she loved Beth with all of her heart and she thought that it showed what a terrible person she was because she couldn't look at her right now. What kind of a mother was she if she couldn't look at her baby because she had bonded more closely with her father than with her? She wasn't supposed to feel this jealous and hurt- she was sure of that. There had to be something wrong with her.

She took her time packing everything away, caught up with all of the negative feelings she was experiencing. She didn't notice Sarah approaching until the girl spoke, "Where's Noah? Why did he leave without us?" The girl's lower lip was trembling and she was breathing hard, as though she had run really hard to get here. Quinn stopped packing Beth's blocks away. It seemed that she wasn't the only one jealous of Puck's relationship with Beth.

"Sarah, your brother still loves you," the words poured out as Quinn felt the desperate need to make the girl feel better, as well as to remind herself that Beth still loved her, "Beth just needed to go home so that she could take a nap and so he took her home. He knew that you were still playing and he didn't want to interrupt your fun so I told him I'd stay and wait for you. You and I never get to spend time alone anymore and I don't think that's very fair. Why don't you and I go catch a movie this afternoon?"

She was aware that she was avoiding going home and hearing Beth's dada again and that she wasn't going to be able to avoid it forever, but she had grown up in a household that encouraged people to avoid uncomfortable situations and she was embracing that upbringing now. Her father would be proud. Sarah looked genuinely excited at the idea of spending some one-on-one time with Quinn, which admittedly made the blonde feel special.

"I can take all of the stuff back to the house and explain to Noah where the two of you are," Judy offered, having made it back to hear Quinn's offer. She didn't look particularly happy about spending time alone with Puck in the house- she was starting to like him a bit more, but still considered him beneath her- and Quinn was grateful again for her mother's ability to keep her promises.

"That would be great, thanks Mum," Judy beamed at the expression of gratitude, making Quinn feel a little guilty. She obviously didn't say thanks enough if that had garnered such a positive response from her mother. She made a note to do something really nice for her mother sometime soon- she almost felt as though she needed a notepad in her head with all of the reminders she was writing for herself lately.

"Can we have popcorn?" Sarah asked her as the three of them finished packing everything away. Quinn had no idea if the girl was allowed junk food, but figured that as long as it was her treat, May and Puck wouldn't get too mad. She had a feeling that Puck wouldn't get mad at her at all for doing this- in fact she was pretty sure that he would thank her for making Sarah feel special- but she hoped that May wouldn't mind either.

"Sure," she replied, handing her mother the basket that held everything they had brought. It was a little heavy, but the park wasn't very far from her house so Judy should be able to make it, "Just let Puck know that we'll be back in a few hours. Remind him that Beth generally likes a cup of milk when she wakes up from a nap and that she likes to colour too- but that he has to watch her if he gives her any crayons otherwise she'll draw all over the walls." There were a few more things that she wanted to add, but Sarah's smile was dropping and Judy was giving her a look that said she was sure that Puck knew all of this already, so she just smiled a little sheepishly and finished with, "And he knows all of that but just humour me and remind him, okay?"

Judy nodded, not bothering to hide her amusement. Sarah was not amused. "Can we go now Quinn? You said we could spend time together but you're just talking about Beth again." Ooh, Sarah had a really close relationship with that green-eyed monster it seemed. Her lower lip was sticking out and her arms were crossed over her chest. Quinn had a feeling she was going to have to do a lot of grovelling before the girl forgave her.

"You're right; from now on I won't mention Beth, okay? We'll just focus on you and me for the next few hours. We'll see you later Mum," as she led Sarah away from the park and towards the movies, she tried to forget about her daughter for a few hours so she could fulfil her promise to Sarah. It didn't quite work, but she was able to keep the conversation away from her daughter. She still felt guilty, but she pushed it away. She may be a crappy mother, but Sarah was like a sister to her and she was determined not to screw that up.

* * *

><p>Puck was bored. He had managed to get Beth home and down for a nap relatively easily (there had been one tricky moment with her diaper, but he managed to fix it before it hit the major-disaster stage). He had put away the stroller and all of the baby supplies it had carried and then he had realised that he didn't know what to do. He had never been in this situation before- alone except for a sleeping toddler and in a house that wasn't his. Quinn had always been with him during Beth's naptimes before and she had always made sure that he had things to do- whether it was some cleaning up or some book on raising toddlers to read, or helping her choose Beth's outfit for the next day (yes, he had unfortunately been exposed to those types of girly activities... and hadn't hated them) - but he had always had a task, something to focus on.<p>

At first he went downstairs, turned on the TV and waited, sure that Quinn would be back at any minute to help him find something to do. However, about twenty minutes after Puck had gotten home, and after he had been sitting in the living room for five, Judy had arrived home without the other girls and said that they had gone to have some bonding time or something like that.

Puck was happy that Quinn had picked up on the fact that Sarah was feeling isolated, but at the same time he wished that she hadn't so he would have something to do (and he could spend some time with her-but he ignored that). Judy had packed away all of the picnic stuff- he had offered to help but she had told him she was alright- before coming back to the living room to join him. To say that he felt really awkward sitting in a room alone with the mother of a girl he had knocked up at sixteen and was now raising a child with without being in a relationship with, and who also happened to be of a different faith and a strong believer in that faith was definitely an understatement. There was also nothing good on TV, hence the boredom.

"Did Quinn seem a little... off to you?" Judy asked him after a tense ten minutes of silence had passed. He shifted in his seat, not knowing what to say. He definitely had sensed that something was wrong with Quinn, but she obviously hadn't wanted to talk about it, so he had left it alone. He didn't know if it was something he should be talking to Judy Fabray about.

"I guess," he offered, knowing he sounded a bit bored and uninterested, but not really wanting to engage in this topic. He hoped she would take the hint, but it seemed that he had offended her (again).

"Look, I know that you and Quinn are not together, but that does not mean that you should disregard her feelings. Something obviously happened between the two of you after we had all eaten and you could at least own up to that and tell me what is going on so that I can help my daughter find her balance again," wow. He had known that she didn't really care for him, but to accuse him like that... He was pissed. She was looking at him like he was scum again and that did nothing to reduce his anger. He hated how high-and-mighty she was, coming back into Quinn's life, going off at people for ruining her daughter's life when she had done a good enough job of it herself. He clenched his fists, wishing he could punch her but knowing that would not be the answer.

"Firstly, you don't know shit about emotions and caring about people, so you can't lecture me on the topic," he ignored her offended look as he swore, feeling glad that Beth was upstairs, "And secondly, I didn't do anything to upset her. Beth called me 'dada' and she hasn't called Quinn anything yet and I think that it all got to her- she doesn't think that she deserves to be the one Beth calls 'mama' or something... I haven't figured it out yet. I know you think I'm a screw-up and I admit that I do stupid shit a lot, but don't ever fucking accuse me of not caring, because you don't know shit about me."

He knew that he had probably let himself get a bit too carried away and he almost expected her to throw him out of the house then and there- it was her house after all. Instead she just stared at him. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat as her eyes tried to burn through him to his soul- it was creepy. He wasn't used to fighting people who didn't fight back, and his anger was slowly dissipating. He couldn't read her expression and he was hit with the fear that she would try to ban him from seeing Beth. Why the hell had he opened his mouth?

"You're smarter than you look," Judy finally said. Puck felt his jaw drop a little. That was _definitely_ not the reaction he had been expecting. What was that supposed to mean? He knew that he wasn't the smartest guy going around, but he was a whole lot better than Finn, and Judy had approved of him. He wished that girls weren't so complicated.

"Uh... thanks?" he hoped that she had been trying to compliment him- he couldn't think of how her comment could have meant anything else- and he knew she valued manners... this whole situation was way out of his comfort zone. Judy cleared her throat, looking a little embarrassed that she had just said that and he got the feeling that she hadn't meant to blurt that out- it must have been something she had been thinking.

"What I mean is that you have picked up on something I'm afraid Quinn is worrying about. I woke up the other morning, hearing Beth crying and really upset. I didn't let my daughter know that I had woken- I wanted to see how she would deal with Beth's terror. Beth was calling out for her mother, and yet when Quinn tried to comfort her... her crying got worse. Beth was calling for Shelby and I believe that Quinn doesn't believe that she is good enough to replace her," he found himself nodding in agreement. The story was new and made him feel guilty, but Judy's conclusions about Quinn matched the observations he had made the past few days.

"She wouldn't look at me or Beth after Beth called me dad," he admitted, looking at the carpet because he couldn't handle Judy's still unreadable expression, "It felt like she was jealous and that she hated herself for it. It almost made me wish that Beth hadn't said it." He was still happy that he and Beth had a strong connection, but he wished that Quinn could have that same feeling. It was weird feeling so bittersweet about the whole thing- he was so happy that Beth loved and felt connected to him but at the same time that very same thing made him feel sad and guilty. He hated how complicated everything was.

He wished he could rewind back to that time in the hospital and beg Quinn to keep Beth. He should have fought harder for them to keep their daughter- if he had then Quinn would never have had to worry about being replaced. As far as he was concerned Quinn was the most irreplaceable person in the world- he couldn't really imagine life without her (which he knew didn't make sense as he had pretty much had little to no interaction with her for the past year) and it pained him to see her believe that she was. If he had fought harder for their family before, then Beth would have never known Shelby and they could have skipped the whole year of regret and pain they had just experienced.

It wouldn't have been easy- he knew that. He also knew that the relationship that they had had back then would not have lasted through the year- raising a baby was tough and he was under no illusions that he would have been the perfect father and boyfriend. So he knew that he and Quinn were actually probably in a better place in terms of their own relationship right now, despite giving Beth up (he had a feeling that if they hadn't then they would be one of those couples who are civil to each other only because of a shared child and the thought of that made him feel cold). He was happy in that regard that they hadn't kept Beth for that reason- and that having her back now was making them closer- but...

He was giving himself a headache. The whole thing was confusing, and no matter how much he thought about it, he was never sure whether or not he was happy about what they had done or not. He knew that it was pointless thinking about it- after all it was the past and they had Beth back now- but he couldn't stop himself from doing it. (The psychologist the juvenile detention centre people had made him visit had told him that we all judge ourselves by our pasts and that it is hard to escape from bad habits. The way he constantly thought about this decision made him think that maybe they were right on that point.)

"It's not your fault," Judy told him, sounding surprisingly genuine (he was still half convinced that this conversation was a dream- Judy Fabray was actually being nice to him and he knew it would be a long time before he could ever accept that.) She sighed, almost as if she realised she wasn't being herself, "If the two of you had kept Beth right from the start, you would have been a mess. I know Quinn is a strong girl and she can handle a lot more than most people give her credit for, but there is no way that the two of you would have handled being parents to a newborn. You would have survived- of course I would have made sure of that- but emotionally you would have been wrecked, and your school work would have suffered, meaning that you would've had no chance of getting out of Lima. At least now..." She trailed off, as if unsure.

He kind of knew what she was saying, but he didn't really believe her when she said it wasn't his fault. He could have done something- if he had just thought about everything a little more and made sure that he had considered every possible option...

"Do you think Beth will ever connect with Quinn?" he asked while Judy didn't seem ready to kill him. She turned to him, looking surprised.

"They already have connected," she sounded shocked that he had even dared question that a connection existed between her daughter and her granddaughter, making him feel a little foolish, "They have connected! Beth just hasn't made the connection between the word 'mama' and the bond that she feels with Quinn. The bond that she had with Shelby would have felt different to her- maybe not as deep as the one she feels with Quinn, or possibly deeper- more due to the amount of time spent together rather than anything else- that's all. There is no doubt in my mind that Beth loves Quinn with her whole heart. It's just that she hasn't developed the language to explain it all yet. It was easier for her with you because she had no connection with the word 'dada' to anyone else in her life and so she could apply it straight to you. Don't you dare believe that Beth and Quinn haven't connected because that is a mistake."

He nodded, a little scared at the fierce protectiveness that he heard in Judy's voice. Her words made a lot of sense to him. He knew that Beth adored Quinn and vice-versa and he had known that Quinn was being foolish by being upset that she hadn't been called 'mama', but he had still had his doubts. He had never really seen Judy openly show her love for her daughter before- she was a very reserved woman after all- and he half wished that Quinn had been here to see it too.

"I know it's just... everything is... it's all just happening so fast that I'm still a little confused about it all," he admitted, feeling as though he had to have an excuse as to why he had questioned it in the first place, "I mean... I'm loving having Beth back and Quinn is finally starting to act like herself again and I have a pretty cool job and everything is going good for the first time in what feels like _forever_ and I just... it all just feels so unreal, you know? And I know that the shi- I mean I know that it's not going to stay this good forever and I'm just waiting for something to go wrong."

He had no idea why he was spilling his guts out to a woman who thought that he was the scum of the Earth, but he couldn't stop himself. He thought that it was probably because she thought that he was scum that he could tell her all of this- after all, if she already thought that he was a massive failure and waste of space, nothing he said could make her opinion of him even worse, right?

"You really are happy with my daughter, aren't you?" he had no idea what she meant by that- again her tone of voice and her expression were undecipherable for him. He didn't know if it was a trick question. What was she expecting him to say? Did she believe that he would lie to her just so he could continue to be in Beth's life? Was she hoping that he would say no; that he would admit that he was just using Quinn or something like that? Or did she genuinely believe that he loved Quinn? He fidgeted with his fingers in his lap, feeling more nervous than he ever had before in his life. Why had Quinn abandoned him to her mother?

"Of course," he finally told her, deciding that honesty was the best policy. She couldn't be angry at him for loving Quinn, right? She stared at him for a few moments, her eyes boring into his as though she was trying to see down to the very darkest depths of his soul. He didn't look away, determined to prove that he was telling the truth. After a few moments she nodded.

"Okay," she said before getting to her feet, "Just know that I am watching you. Quinn is my daughter and I will _always_ take her side over yours. As long as you don't hurt her, I'll let you stick around. She needs you more than she lets on and if you abuse that... well, I'll make sure that you'll regret it." She then smiled at him as though she hadn't just threatened him, before leaving the room.

He sat there on the couch and wondered what the hell had just happened. Had she just given him permission to be friends with Quinn? Had she been trying to tell him to try to be more than friends with Quinn? Or was she trying to scare him away from the situation? He knew that she hated him, so why had she just been almost friendly with him? Why was she so interested in his opinion on what was going on with Quinn? There were way too many questions and he had no idea about the answers.

After a few minutes pondering what had just happened, he shrugged and reached for the remote. He was just going to give himself an even bigger headache if he continued to guess at what had just happened. Women were weird. As long as Judy didn't keep him away from his girls, he figured there was no problem. If she interfered however, well that was when he was going to have to deal with it all. In the meantime, Beth was asleep, Judy was off doing whatever rich ladies did in their free time, and he was tired. He would deal with it all if and when the shit hit the fan. He switched the TV back on and made himself comfortable. Beth would sleep for a couple of hours, so he might as well relax while he could.

* * *

><p>As Sam parked his car outside of Rachel Berry's house he had to remind himself that he was doing this for Mercedes. To say that he was excited about attending Rachel's Glee summer party would be a massive overstatement. Mercedes had had to grovel a <em>lot<em> to get him to go. It wasn't as though he disliked Rachel, it was more that he remembered that her last party had only been bearable because of the alcohol, and ever since Brittany had puked all over Rachel, the Glee club hadn't been a big fan of drinking. Besides, this party was in the middle of the day, so the chances of them all getting drunk were extremely low. At least Mercedes had said that Rachel had a pool, so he hoped that the afternoon wasn't going to be a total disaster.

"Hey Sam, it's good to see you man. Where've you been all summer?" Finn answered the door, obviously having been roped into the duty by Rachel. Sam shrugged and held up the chips and coke he had brought with him to make sure that there was at least some unhealthy food at the party. (He knew Rachel was a vegan and therefore knew the food probably wouldn't be good).

"Hey, it's only been five weeks... I've been around," he answered vaguely. He wasn't sure if Finn knew that he was dating Mercedes yet. It was true that Finn had been in on that phone call earlier in the summer, where Kurt had basically forced Mercedes to admit that something was going on between the two of them, but Finn was kind of dense when it came to this kind of thing, so there was a good chance that he hadn't picked up on it yet.

"Yeah I heard you're going out with Mercedes now. That's cool. We need to definitely organise a gaming day soon though- Artie and Mike want to come too," he led the way through Rachel's house, and after putting the food down in the kitchen they eventually emerged outside. Sam whistled as he took in the enormous pool and expensive-looking decking. Since her last party had occurred at night in winter, he hadn't seen the pool before. It looked pretty awesome.

Santana and Brittany were already there (which surprised him- he thought that they would've turned up as late as they possibly could to avoid spending time with Rachel). They were both lying on lounge chairs in tiny bikinis, obviously enjoying the sun. Artie, Tina and Mike were gathered at one end of the pool having a conversation. It mustn't have been an interesting conversation though, as Artie kept on glancing back to stare at Brittany. Kurt and Blaine were sitting on the edge of the pool, with their feet in the water. Blaine was gesturing as he talked and Kurt was rolling his eyes as they bantered about something. Mercedes and Rachel were nowhere to be seen- he knew that his girlfriend was here because she had texted him already, but he had no clue where she was.

"Yeah sure, we should have a COD marathon. We still have a week of summer- we can definitely fit it in," he agreed with Finn after taking the moment to sort out where everyone was, "Is Puck going to play too?" Finn's expression dropped a little at the mention of his best friend.

"Well, he said he was in as long as it was on a day he wasn't working, but he has Beth and I don't know if he's going to have time to play. He did say that he would try though," oh yeah, Sam had almost forgotten about all of the baby drama. He had heard about Quinn and Beth and everything, but to be honest he was still a little mad at Quinn for the way she had cheated on him and then lied about it, so he wasn't all that interested. Besides, he had been busy keeping up with Mercedes- he hadn't really had time to worry about his ex and her 'new' family.

"Are they coming today?" he asked, more out of politeness than any real interest. He was still scanning the area, trying to figure out where his girl had disappeared off to. Finn shrugged.

"Quinn said something about maybe leaving Beth with Puck's mum for a couple of hours so she might be around. Puck is working this afternoon, but said he'd drop by after work. He works at Burt's garage and Burt knows about the party so he said he might let him knock off a little early so he doesn't miss out on too much. Hey, did your dad find a new job?" Sam was relieved at the change in topic. He knew that he had asked about his ex, but still... it was good to not have to talk about it.

"Yeah he found a job at some company not too far away and so it looks like my family's going to get back on track," Finn smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"That's awesome dude! And it's great that you won't have to leave glee and McKinley," Sam nodded, happy that others were as excited as he was about not having to quit glee. Although he had been sceptical about joining at first, glee had been one of the best decisions he had ever made. He was about to say something along those lines when Mercedes and Rachel emerged from wherever they had been hiding inside the house. Rachel was wearing a pretty skimpy bikini and Sam literally heard Finn's jaw drop. Mercedes was dressed in a much more decent swimming costume that covered her up- no matter how many times Sam told her she was beautiful she didn't believe it- but she still looked pretty hot.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Mercedes asked as she and Rachel joined them. Finn was too busy staring at Rachel to even notice that he had been asked a question. Rachel had noticed his staring and was blushing and biting her lip.

"Hey, you look hot," Sam told Mercedes, nudging her shoulder with his. She smiled.

"Thanks. Kurt helped me pick this out, and Rachel's outfit too," Finn was still in the 'too-stunned-to-speak' phase and Sam doubted he even remembered that they were there.

"Sam it is good to see you. I am very honoured that you made it. Feel free to use the pool at any time, and there is food and drink in the kitchen. We're going to order pizza later for you guys and salads for those who believe that meat and dairy are murder. There is sunscreen over there on the table- please remember to apply it so that you don't burn- and the music will be turned on shortly," Rachel's cheeks were still a little red, but she jabbed Finn with her elbow quickly, as if to remind him where they were. Finn jumped and blinked as if finally waking up.

"Thanks Rachel. You have an awesome backyard," he told her honestly after laughing at Finn's embarrassed expression. Rachel beamed at him before taking Finn's hand and dragging him away, leaving Sam alone with Mercedes.

"See, I told you it wouldn't be too bad," Mercedes told him, gesturing at the pool, "One of Rachel's dads is a lawyer so they have a heap of money. Everyone will be busy swimming and eating and so Rachel won't interfere too much with that." He grabbed her hand and smiled when her eyes lit up. He didn't know why he had bothered dating someone like Quinn when Mercedes had been in front of him the whole time.

He led her over to the side of the pool to where Kurt and Blaine were still bantering. He and Mercedes joined in their conversation- well, Mercedes joined in and Sam just nodded whenever he felt it was appropriate. They were talking about some actor guy he had never heard of and he would have totally left them to talk about it whilst he went swimming, but Mercedes was leaning forwards in her eagerness to talk to Kurt and that meant that he had a great view down the top of her bathing suit and he wasn't going to give that up.

"For the millionth time Quinn its fine! Rachel doesn't have a problem with Beth being here," Sam's attention was diverted from Mercedes'...assets... by Finn's frustrated tone. He glanced up quickly to see that Quinn had arrived at the party. She was wearing a light pink t-shirt and denim shorts instead of the bikinis the other girls were wearing. He quickly saw why- there was a stroller with a small toddler sitting right next to her. Mrs. Fabray obviously hadn't been able to babysit and so Quinn had brought her daughter to the party.

"If she doesn't have a problem with Beth, why is she avoiding me? She hasn't been to see me for over a week now, and cancelled our plans for a movie afternoon the other day. I know we're not best friends or anything, but..." she shrugged, as if unable to explain what was making her so upset about the situation.

Finn was looking very uncomfortable, but Sam wasn't about to go and save him. Instead he looked at the little girl who was apparently the cause of massive mayhem the year before. She was very pretty, he decided. She was dressed in a little white dress that was covered in small blue flowers. Her brown hair held a small blue and white bow that complemented the dress, and little white socks covered her tiny feet. She was happily chattering away to a small teddy bear, although he doubted that she was making any sense at all.

"She's not avoiding you or Beth okay, just trust me?" Finn was pleading to Quinn, who still wasn't looking very happy. She raised an eyebrow at him, almost as if he had let something interesting slip.

"She's avoiding Puck, isn't she?" she said knowingly. Sam suddenly turned away from them, uncomfortable with the topic of conversation. He had to admit that he had been avoiding Puck too, although his avoidance wasn't as noticeable as he had never really been close to Puckerman. Ever since he had heard about Puck's depression he had been plagued with guilt. He knew that he had nothing to feel guilty for, really, as he and Quinn had only gotten together _after_ Puck had crashed that car but still... he had totally stolen Quinn away from Puck. He had known, going into the relationship with the cheerleader that they were both using each other, and he had known that Puck still had obvious feelings for her, and yet he had still gone and taken her. He knew that Puck had been messed up before that, but it was still a pretty low thing to do. It helped that Sam did care for Quinn in the end- it hadn't been love, but he did care- but seeing him with Quinn probably hadn't helped Puck at all.

"Look, it's really complicated okay? Rach and Puck have this weird friendship thing going on where they act all protective of each other but then hate each other because of it or something like that. She's really upset about everything that he didn't tell us about last year and he said something to upset her even more and she's worried that she's offended him or something- I don't know. It's really confusing because she uses a lot of big words and I'm not entirely sure I understand what she means so I can't tell you, but she's going to love that Beth's here, you'll see," despite the fact that Sam didn't want to hear this conversation, Kurt and Mercedes had stopped talking so they could eavesdrop and Quinn and Finn were too close for them to not hear their words. He heard Quinn sigh, but he didn't turn around to look because he really was trying hard not to eavesdrop and besides, Mercedes was still leaning forward.

"I'm so sick of hearing about last year," she muttered sounding extremely frustrated. He gathered that although Santana had spilled the beans to them the other day, Quinn was still in the dark about it all. It surprised him to figure that out. He had seen that Puck and Quinn hadn't talked that much over the past year, but they had seemed so close after Nationals and now that they had Beth to consider, he just assumed that Puck would have said something to Quinn. After all, raising a kid together was a big thing and something like depression could get in the way of that.

"Quinn, good you're here! Ooh and is that Beth? She's grown so much already!" Rachel's voice interrupted whatever Quinn was about to say. At Rachel's announcement it seemed that the rest of the party figured out that the blonde had arrived and everyone stopped what they were doing to come and crowd around the toddler. Sam sighed because it meant that Mercedes stopped pretending to have a conversation with Kurt and also climbed to her feet, meaning he lost his view.

"Come on, let's go say hi. You can stare at me all you want later," Mercedes whispered to him as she offered him a hand up. Sam couldn't stop the grin from spreading across his face as he was caught out. Oh yeah, this party wasn't turning out to be a bad thing after all.

* * *

><p>Puck really wanted to go home. He had had a long day at work- Burt had tried to let him go home early but a couple of emergencies had come up and he had ended up having to stay an extra hour- and he hadn't been sleeping well the past week, so he was tired. He had been worrying about Quinn and Beth and how a lot of the Glee kids had been avoiding him and sleeping was hard. He really wanted to go home and sleep, but he wanted to see his daughter (and Quinn) more. He had turned up at her house to find only Judy though- apparently Rachel's party was still going and Quinn had taken their daughter there earlier.<p>

When he heard that his girls were at Rachel's place he almost turned around and went home to sleep anyway. He did not want to see Rachel. He wasn't in the mood to deal with her drama. She was still avoiding him after he had gotten pissed at her and to be honest it had been a relief not to have to deal with it all. If he hadn't wanted to see Beth and Quinn so badly he would definitely have gone home. Unfortunately he loved his girls too much and, as he hadn't had time before work to see them that morning due to his sister being sick, he needed to see them now. He was pretty sure that he would die if he didn't see them at least once every 24 hours. He knew that he could probably wait until Quinn came home- it was only four-thirty- but he knew that Beth would be cranky and want to sleep when they got back and he wanted to spend some time with her when she was awake.

So he parked his truck behind Finn's mother's station wagon with a sigh, resigned to the fact that he was going to have to face a lot of people who knew about his depression. No one answered when he knocked on the door, and since he could hear music coming from the back, he headed around the side of the house.

When he got around to the back of the house (which he had seen before so he wasn't surprised by it) everyone was busy, so he could take some time to hang back and observe before being forced into the crowd. It seemed as though Beth was quite popular- Santana and Britt had her propped up between them and Santana was using Beth as a puppet and dancing her around. Tina was snapping a few photos of the scene on her camera and Rachel and Mercedes were dancing around the chairs where they were all seated. Sam, Kurt and Blaine were nearby, sitting with their feet in the water, but watching the scene and calling out comments as they went along. Quinn was sitting with the boys, feet in the water, but looked ready to jump up to get Beth if Santana let the girl fall. There was no sign of Finn.

"Okay, even I have to admit that she's cute," Santana said as the song ended, stopping the dancing. Beth frowned as she felt herself being lowered back onto the seat, but she didn't cry. Quinn laughed loudly from her place by the pool, and Puck couldn't stop himself from smiling as Beth smiled at her mother's laughter. He loved that his two girls were so happy and he was quite content to stay silent and just watch them enjoy themselves for a few moments longer.

"I can't believe how small she is," Britt gushed, taking one of Beth's tiny hands in her own, "I mean, she's so little that she's like a doll. Lord Tubbington would completely crush her. She's so cute."

"Have you tried to get her to sing yet?" Rachel called out to Quinn. She had stopped dancing around at the end of the song, but her eyes were still on the small toddler. It was almost as though the little girl had some sort of hypnotic powers. Puck had to admit that he was proud that his daughter had such a magnetic effect on everyone.

"Well, she tries to sing along whenever Puck plays his guitar. She doesn't get it quite right a lot of the time, but she seems to love music. It always helps her to go to sleep at night," Quinn answered, shifting her attention away from the conversation she had been having with Sam (it looked like the two of them had made up or something- Puck could have sworn that the Ken doll had not been happy with Quinn at the end of the school year). Rachel nodded, suddenly looking determined about something.

"Well I will help you with her vocal training. After all, she is going to be in her school's glee club one day and it would be a waste if we let her talent lie latent until high school. She needs a strict routine from an early age if she wants to make the most of her potential," okay, he had heard enough. He had been quite content to sit back and let the party go on without him, but he definitely did not want Berry filling Beth's head with crazy ideas of being on stage from the age of 2 or some shit like that.

"No way Berry," he headed straight for Beth as he announced his presence, having the urge to protect her from Berry's over-zealousness, "B's got enough natural talent that she'll do just fine, won't you B?" When Beth saw that he was there, her face lit up and she started bouncing in her seat, reaching up with her arms in anticipation of the big hug she knew he would give her.

"Dada!" she cooed happily as Santana and Britt let go of her so he could scoop her up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the female members of glee practically melt at how sweet Beth sounded. All of them that is, except for Quinn, who tried to hide how upset she was over the fact that Beth would call him dada, but would never call Quinn anything.

Ever since that day in the park, things had been a little strained between the two of them. He didn't know what to say to allay Quinn's fears about never replacing Shelby, and she didn't seem to know what to say to him anymore. They made small talk about the things Beth had done each day, but they could never seem to talk about what they were feeling about the situation anymore. It was stressing him out more than he liked to admit. It was obvious to everyone that Beth adored Quinn and loved her so much. He just wished that Beth could vocalise that love into the word 'mama' or 'mum' or something because he didn't know how much longer he could take Quinn's anxiety.

"I will concede that she probably does have natural talent Noah, but I did too and even I had to train for hours each day to reach the high standard I am at today," Rachel told him firmly after recovering from Beth's cuteness. It was good to see her acting fired up again- he knew that after their last conversation he had been quite cold to her and that it had affected her quite badly. He had just been so annoyed at her, at everyone, for saying that they knew what it was like for him and he had just lost his cool. He wasn't going to apologise for his behaviour- he never liked apologising for his actions- but he was happy to act like it had all never happened if she was.

"No offense Berry but your schedule is nuts and B totally has a better singing voice than you," he knew that he was probably biased, but he believed that to be true. Beth cuddled closer against his neck, putting her head on his shoulder and he knew that she was going to fall asleep. He guessed that she hadn't had her afternoon nap at her regular time because of the excitement of the party, but now that she had a comfortable and familiar place (she had fallen asleep on him many times now) she was happy to take her nap. There was a loud click from in front of him and he realised that while he had been distracted by Berry Tina had snuck in to take a photo of him holding Beth.

"You know, she might not _want_ to perform when she's older you know," Blaine pointed out from his seat by the pool, "I think you guys might be jumping the gun a little." Kurt sighed and shook his head, as though Blaine had proposed an outrageous idea.

"I seriously doubt that she won't be in glee. With Quinn as her mother and, well, even Puckerman has some talent I guess, she will be a little star," he gushed, his eyes twinkling as though he could picture it all now.

"I could make her some awesome costumes. She'd make such a gorgeous little strawberry," Britt said, tilting her head to one side as though she was taking Beth's measurements so she could make said strawberry costume. This was all getting out of hand. It was official- the glee club had gone nuts with baby fever.

"Alright guys, pizza is here!" Finn appeared in the back doorway of Rachel's house with Artie by his side. Artie had about 6 pizzas and a couple of containers of salad piled on his knees. There was a small cheer at the announcement of food before a mad rush to dish out pizza and salad to ensure everyone had enough food. Puck stayed where he was- he knew that Finn at least would save him some pizza and he didn't want to disturb Beth, who was on the verge of sleep.

"Here, I got you some pizza," it wasn't Finn who appeared with his food, but Quinn. She was used to pushing through people to get what she wanted (it was a requirement of being head Cheerio) and so she had managed to get them both some pizza. He was a little surprised that she wasn't eating the salad, but her perspective on food had seemed to change after she had been pregnant. It didn't surprise him that she had gone for the pizza that had bacon, whereas she had gotten him some sort of vegetarian pizza to ensure that he didn't have pork.

"Thanks," he looked around for a moment before settling himself down on the chair that Santana had been using. She was still serving herself some salad and he figured that he could use Beth as a human shield against her wrath if she had a problem with him stealing her seat. It was one of those long sunbathing seats, and Quinn took a seat on the other end of it.

"How's Sarah feeling?" she asked once he had managed to balance Beth and his plate of pizza. She was avoiding looking at him and he had a feeling she was jealous of the way Beth seemed so comfortable with him. He wanted to point out that their daughter was happy to fall asleep in Quinn's arms too, but he refrained as he didn't want the rest of glee to overhear that conversation. Instead his thoughts went back to his sister's increasingly frustrating attitude.

"She should be alright tomorrow. She just had a small stomach bug, but she tried to make it sound worse than it was for the attention. You know what she's been like the past few weeks. She's just so jealous of B it's not funny. Ma stayed with her all day, but she cried and cried until I agreed to stay with her until I had to go to work. It's starting to piss me off," he quickly glanced down at Beth to see if she had heard his bad language, but the little girl was fast asleep. He took this as a sign and took a bite of his pizza. It was so good to have food- lunch felt like a millennia ago.

"Hopefully she'll get over it soon. She is being pretty clingy at the moment and it's not really fair of her to stop you from spending time with Beth," Quinn had a small spot of pizza sauce sitting just under her lower lip and it took all of his will power to restrain himself from leaning over and wiping it off. He took another bite of his own pizza to give himself something to focus on other than that.

"I kind of get it... I mean, she is only little and she shouldn't have to deal with having a niece at her age but yeah, I am getting sick of it and so is Ma. I'm sorry that I couldn't come over and help out this morning, but I should be there tonight and tomorrow. I missed my girls this morning," he didn't realise what he had said until he saw Quinn's cheeks turn bright red and he saw Kurt's eyebrow raise out of the corner of his eye. He quickly took another bite of pizza and hoped like hell that he hadn't started to blush. He tried to look as cool and normal as usual, as though he hadn't said anything out of the ordinary. And since when had his private conversations become open for public viewing? It had taken him a while to notice, but it was extremely quiet. Only Sam and Mercedes seemed to be talking- the rest of the glee kids were totally eavesdropping.

"It's all good. Beth was pretty good this morning. She only threw a small portion of her breakfast on the floor and actually helped me dress her instead of trying to undress herself like she usually does," Quinn seemed aware that their conversation was being monitored too- she gave a subtle head movement in Kurt's direction, as though warning him that there were other people present. He rolled his eyes a little, to show that he knew everyone was listening and thought they were lame for reading too much into a private conversation. The bit of sauce was still under her lip though and it was hard to concentrate beyond that. What would everyone think if he wiped it off for her? That was a can of worms he really didn't want to open, but it was hard.

"I think she likes wearing dark blue," he commented as he took in his daughter's outfit, "It probably reminds her of the day we got her back, with your blue dress. She loves copying you." Quinn choked on her pizza, looking surprised. She must never have noticed Beth's preference for colour, but he had seen that on the mornings they dressed her in blue, she was helpful and when they tried to get her in pink she threw a fit. He himself could understand why- pink was girly as shit and so not a badass colour- but he guessed that Quinn, who loved pink, wouldn't have wanted to make that connection.

His guess that Beth associated blue with Quinn was something he liked to think was true, and he had noticed that Beth copied things Quinn did. For example Quinn was very fiddly with her hands- she often kept them moving around, smoothing down her clothes or hanging onto her elbows. Puck had caught Beth doing that exact same thing- she would smooth down the front of her dress only seconds after she had seen Quinn doing the same thing. It kept on happening, but he doubted that Quinn had taken any notice of it.

"She must have been tired," Quinn says after taking a moment to compose herself. It was incredibly frustrating that she refused to acknowledge her importance in Beth's life, but the toddler was asleep on his shoulder and so that stopped him from getting angry. It didn't help his cause that there were other people around- the gleeks were starting to lose interest in their conversation and were starting their own in small groups, but he was still conscious of the fact that they could hear them.

"What time did she wake up this morning?" he went along with the change in conversation, resigned to the fact that she wasn't going to open up to him now (or probably ever he guessed.) From there they made some small talk about Beth and what she had done that day. Quinn asked him about work and he told her about all of the crap that had happened and they pretended (well, he did at least) that everything was great between the two of them. The glob of pizza sauce was still sitting underneath her lip and his restraint was starting to run out.

"Hey guys," Finn came over to them after about five minutes, carrying a couple of slices of pizza. He looked around for a couple of seconds before shrugging and sitting on the floor. He was so tall that even sitting on the ground he wasn't that much lower than Quinn was sitting on the chair. Puck was a little relieved that he had come over. While he normally would have been annoyed that his conversation with Quinn had been interrupted, this conversation had been strained due to the fact that they were so conscious of being watched, and all of the tension that was starting to creep up between them. Finn's interruption also distracted him from that glob of sauce, so he was unlikely to make an idiot of himself by reaching over and taking care of it for her.

"Berry's going to go nuts at you for eating that," Puck pointed out to Finn instead, nodding his head towards the pizza. He didn't really think that was the case, but he had finished his pizza and was hoping that Finn would feel guilty about breaking his girlfriend's vegan beliefs and give a slice to Puck. Finn looked at his second slice of pizza with a wince before holding it out to Puck.

"You're right... This vegan stuff is really confusing. I mean, they're allowed to eat plants, which are alive, but they can't eat cheese, which isn't? It doesn't make sense dude," he took another bite out of the slice of pizza he still held, as though hoping it would explain the concept to him. Puck honestly had no idea what vegans were allowed to eat- he was just glad that Finn was gullible enough to give him pizza.

"Cheese comes from animals who are being kept in horrible conditions just to harvest product from," Rachel announced as she came over to join them. In a way he was glad that she had stopped avoiding him, but he was still tired and he hoped she wasn't going to go all diva-esque on them because he just didn't have the energy.

"If you use that logic though, tomato plants are grown for the sole purpose of harvesting the tomatoes, so isn't that the same thing?" Quinn asked. She finally seemed to notice the glob of sauce and she wiped it away with her finger. Puck was a little disappointed that he had missed the opportunity, but again he forced himself to focus. He made himself face Rachel and tried (and failed) to keep his eyes away from Quinn. Rachel looked a little stumped at Quinn's logic.

"Well, we have to eat _something_ and animals have more feelings than plants and deserve better treatment than what those farmers give them," she finally said after a moment's pause. Puck didn't really care about what they were talking about as Quinn and Rachel continued to banter back and forth. He kind of got caught up in staring at Quinn- she was so animated whenever she was trying to prove a point and despite his best efforts, he couldn't stop himself from watching her. He lost track of what they were arguing about, completely entranced by his girl.

"Hey, you okay?" he was jolted back to reality when Finn poked his side. Quinn and Rachel were still lost in their argument, and Finn had made sure to keep his voice quiet so the girls didn't notice. Puck took a moment to respond- firstly because he had almost had a heart attack when Finn poked him, and secondly because he had a feeling that Finn was referencing his depression in the question and that was annoying.

"Yeah, just tired. Work was busy," he knew there was no point blowing up at Finn and he wanted to keep their conversation quiet so Quinn wouldn't hear and get suspicious. Besides, Beth was still asleep and he didn't want to do anything that could wake her- she was grouchy when she was woken up unexpectedly.

"You haven't come around to kill zombies," Finn pointed out awkwardly, clearly having to think hard to think of a subtle way to ask what he wanted to ask. Puck sighed.

"Haven't really felt like it. Everything's been good so far," that was a bit of a lie- there had been a couple of times he had had what his psychologist referred to as 'unhelpful thoughts,' mostly when he had been worrying about this whole situation with Quinn, but he didn't feel the need to worry Finn about it all. He had mostly been good and when he wasn't feeling that great he forced himself to go over to Quinn's place and see Beth. His daughter not only made him feel happy as soon as he saw her, but she also reminded him that he was a father and he had someone relying on him now. He couldn't abandon his baby girl like his father had abandoned him and that meant that he couldn't kill himself. So far his methods were working.

Finn looked massively relieved and grinned at him, looking a little like a crazy maniac when doing so, "That's great man. The offer's still there though."

"Yeah whatever," this was turning out to be too mushy- it was like some chick flick shit and even though he knew that Finn was pretty girly when it came to feelings, it was too much for him to deal with at the moment. Besides, Quinn was looking between the pair of them as though she knew something was up, and that was the last thing that he needed, "Did you talk to the guys about that Halo tournament?" He made sure that he spoke a little louder so that she could hear that they weren't talking about anything serious.

"Yeah they're all in. You're going to play for a while, right? Mike said something about not being able to play for very long because he's promised his dad that he'll help out at home, so maybe if you and him switch off and be a team? That way you can both play without having us having to start the whole tournament again and Mike can play in the morning and you can come play in the afternoon after work," Puck was pretty impressed that Finn had thought of this idea. Then again, knowing Finn, he had probably gotten the idea from Artie. It wasn't that Finn was dumb, it was just that he had a different kind of smarts. He was pretty good at reading people (except for Rachel, but that was just because he was so blindly in love with her that it screwed up his senses) and he was a natural leader, he just wasn't intelligent.

"Sure, sounds great," Beth stirred in his arms and he shifted automatically to make sure that she didn't fall. He patted her back softly, encouraging her to stay asleep. She shifted again and let out a little whimper. He frowned, not sure what was going on.

"Is she awake?" Quinn asked, reaching over and placing a hand on Beth's back. Her sudden closeness startled him, but he hid it well.

"No she's still out, but I reckon she's getting close to waking up. We might need to take her home- I so don't want to have to deal with a temper tantrum here. Did you walk here?" Quinn lived pretty close to Rachel, so he assumed that she had. He knew that they would have to walk it back to Quinn's anyway- there was no way he was going to try to put Beth into the car seat when she was this close to waking up cranky already.

"Yeah, but what about your truck? You can't leave that here," she was right- his house was too far from Quinn's for him to walk, and he didn't want to have to walk back to Rachel's later just to get his truck.

"Alright, I'll take the stroller and everything back in my truck and you can carry Beth back," he offered, seeing no other way. He would have gotten her to drive his truck, but it was hard to drive because it was old and half of the gears stuck and the one time she had tried to drive it before she had hated it and refused to drive it again.

"You think she'll wake up?" Quinn asked, biting her bottom lip as she worried about it. Puck was a little distracted by the action and took probably half a second too long to answer. He hoped she thought he was just considering the question and not staring at her.

"Nah, she'll be right. She might wake up for a second, but once she realises you've got her she'll sleep again," she looked a bit sceptical, but stood so that he could pass her over. Puck paused to make sure that he had hold of Beth properly before he did the same. As he was standing he noticed that Finn and Rachel were whispering together, stealing quick glances back at Puck and Quinn. Rachel was also motioning to Tina with one hand. He didn't know what that was all about, but he didn't dwell on it. He had his daughter to think about first.

He quickly checked that Beth was still sleeping. Her eyes were still closed, but her face was scrunched up a little as if she was not happy at being asleep and she whimpered again. He didn't have a good angle so he couldn't really tell, but he thought that her cheeks looked a little redder than usual. He definitely needed to get her home.

He stepped closer to Quinn and she gently peeled their daughter off his shoulder and transferred her onto her own shoulder. Beth squirmed a little at first, but settled down pretty quickly. It was as if she knew that she was safe in her mother's arms and so she didn't need to worry about the change in position. As they were passing Beth between them there was a loud click and he suddenly got why Rachel had been calling Tina over. Tina was the one with the camera and she had taken a picture of the moment.

"Sorry but that was just too good a moment to miss," she said, keeping her voice quiet as she held up the camera as though defending herself. Puck rolled his eyes before grabbing the stroller and checking the ground for any stray toys Beth might have thrown somewhere. Quinn was feeling at Beth's forehead, looking quite worried.

"I think she's got a temperature," she told him as he stuffed Beth's purple teddy bear onto the stroller seat, "Maybe we should brave the car seat. It's fifteen minute walk and if she's sick... She's half asleep anyway so she probably won't notice that we're putting her in there." He considered it for a second before nodding. He thought of his sister and how she had been sick that morning- it was possible that Beth had caught the same kind of bug Sarah had had and if so, this was not going to be fun.

"Yeah you're right. I think we have everything so we'd better go," he was anxious to get back to the Fabray house. Judy was there, and she would know what to do. They would also be able to call his mother and get her advice on what to do as well. He had a feeling that it was going to be a long night. He was completely ignoring the other glee kids- he knew that he was being a little rude, but his daughter was sick and so he couldn't care less what they thought.

"Thank you for the party, it's been great. I'm sorry we have to leave so early but Beth needs to get home," he heard Quinn tell Rachel politely as he started to push the stroller towards his truck. He gave a short nod to Finn- his version of what Quinn had told Rachel- and nodded at a few of the guys as he passed them, but concentrated more on getting to his truck as quickly as possible. Quinn called out a few more soft goodbyes and apologies, but she was right behind him so he knew that she was just as eager as he was to get out of there.

It was the longest journey to his truck he had ever made. Okay, so he knew that in reality it only took a minute max, but it felt like forever. Beth whimpered a couple of times and each time it happened he held his breath, hoping against hope that she stayed sleepy enough that she wouldn't fight them too much when putting her in her seat.

He was so anxious about that that when they did reach his truck he threw the stroller in the back, not caring that half of Beth's toys spilled out onto the bed of the truck, and quickly opened the passenger door. They had bought an extra car seat for his truck, despite the fact that his truck wasn't the safest car in the world. They had decided that it was best to have one in there, just in case they got stuck and only had the truck. He was glad that they had done that now, as Beth probably would have woken up before reaching the house if they had had to walk back.

"Is it strapped in properly?" Quinn whispered to him as she quickly examined the seat. He poked his head into the truck and checked each of the straps, giving them a quick tug, before nodding.

"Yeah, should be fine. Hopefully she'll stay asleep," he stepped back a little so she could place Beth in the seat. He was still a bit close though and as she leaned in to get Beth settled and strapped in she brushed past him.

He had to admit, despite the slight panic he was feeling over Beth's temperature, that it felt good to be in contact with Quinn again. They had been pretty good at keeping away from each other physically since Beth had been brought back into their lives. There had been a few times when their hands had touched when handing things to their daughter, but all-in-all they had kept themselves apart. That meant that whenever they did make contact with each other his mind would go blank for a millisecond. He thought that Quinn paused for a second after the contact too, but he must have imagined it because two seconds later Beth was in her seat and Quinn was fiddling with the straps.

Puck wanted to help but the lack of space meant that he couldn't do anything from this side. He went around to the driver's door and climbed into the truck. His truck had a bench seat at the front, with three seatbelts. Beth's car seat was situated in the middle of the bench seat, so he sat in the driver's seat and quickly got to help in fastening the straps. Beth started to really wake up when they were almost done fastening them in. When she realised that she was no longer safe in her parents' arms, her face scrunched up and she began to wail.

"Hey sweetie, it's okay. We're just taking you home so you can sleep in your nice crib and we'll get you some medicine to make you feel better, okay? We're right here with you B," Quinn crooned as she climbed into the passenger seat and put on her own belt. Beth quieted for about a tenth of a second before beginning to wail again, this time throwing her arms around in the air. Puck thrust the last strap of her car seat through the loop before quickly turning to get the truck started. Beth screamed and kicked and threw her arms around, really unhappy at being restrained and possibly she wasn't feeling very well.

"Come on B, we'll be home in like ten seconds," he pleaded, her screams putting him on edge as he threw the truck into drive. He had to take a deep breath before he pulled away from the curb to ensure that he didn't drive recklessly. Even though it was only a short drive to Quinn's house he knew he had to be careful. Beth's cries were beginning to scare him though- she usually stopped screaming once they were in motion- and he could feel his heart pick up speed as his panic started to grow.

"Please baby its okay. We're almost there," Quinn was trying to sound soothing, but he could hear that edge of panic in her voice and he only hoped that Beth didn't hear it too. Quinn was stroking Beth's hair in another attempt to calm her down, but it was having little effect. Puck tried to concentrate fully on driving, but it was so hard to ignore his little girl's cries.

Beth was normally such a happy little girl- she was usually smiling and cooing and although she had thrown a couple of temper tantrums, she had never been upset like this before. It broke his heart to see her so unhappy. Her angelic face was completely red now as she tried to let the whole world know how upset she was. By the time they pulled up outside of Quinn's house he was ready to cry or something because he just could not deal with her tears.

Quinn immediately started getting Beth out of her seat as soon as Puck stopped the truck. He didn't waste any time in helping her either. It was quite clear that the goal was to get Beth out of there as soon as possible. Quinn finished with the straps on her side first, so she was the one who scooped her out of the seat when Puck finally managed to finish his side.

"I'll tell your mum we're here," Puck told her before literally jumping out of the car. Beth was still screaming and crying and he had no idea whether it was a reaction to waking up in the car or whether it was due to the fever she seemed to have. He hoped that it was just a reaction to waking up and that she would calm down now that they were home, but he had a feeling that it was more that she was sick. Whatever the case, he just hoped that she calmed down soon. He didn't think his heart could take hearing her be so upset for much longer.

* * *

><p>Quinn had absolutely no idea what she was doing. Beth was crying and kicking her arms and legs and had been doing so for the past twenty minutes. She didn't understand how everything could have changed so quickly. Beth had been so happy and healthy at the party, dancing around and cooing nonsense at everyone who paid attention to her (which was pretty much everyone). Then Puck had shown up and she had been so happy to see him and she had fallen asleep and it was all still fine. Then she had cried out in her sleep and it had all turned to hell.<p>

When they had arrived back at her house she had been so relieved because she was sure that her mother would tell her what to do and Beth would stop crying and everything would be fine. The car trip back to her house had been bad- she had never seen Beth so upset before and nothing she tried would calm her down. When they had entered the house and Judy had appeared she had almost been ready to throw the toddler at her so that she could break down into tears herself.

"There's not much we can really do for her other than give her some medicine and hope that brings her temperature down. If her temperature continues to increase or she starts vomiting, that's when we take her to the doctors. There's no point in doing that until we know that it's serious because it'll just be a waste of time," was all Judy had told them before saying that she had made arrangements to have dinner with a friend and so she had to leave. Puck was in the kitchen searching for where they had put the medicine they had bought in case situations like this arose, leaving her with a screaming toddler.

"Have you found it yet?" she called to him, wishing that she had been the one to get the medicine so she could have a break from the screaming (although she was pretty sure that Puck was panicking just as much as she was and that was why she had heard several crashes from the kitchen- luckily it didn't sound as though anything had broken, but it wasn't looking good for her mother's plates). She stood up and started to pace around the living room, patting Beth's back gently.

"Got it!" Puck called after a particularly loud bang emanated from the kitchen. He rushed back into the room, carrying a small pink bottle. Quinn stopped her pacing so she could check the label on the bottle. It wasn't that she didn't trust him to get the right thing, but she just couldn't stop herself from making sure. He had grabbed the right bottle.

"How are we supposed to get her to take it?" she asked as she watched him open the bottle and pour out the right amount of the gooey substance. Beth was still crying, her shoulders shaking and her face bright red. How were they supposed to get her to swallow the medicine down? She was barely able to _breathe_ because of her tears. Puck's eyes widened and he stared at the instructions on the box as though it would spring to life and help them out.

"Uh... Shi- I mean... we just have to force it in her mouth I guess," he shrugged and threw the box onto the coffee table, luckily still holding the bottle and the little cup Beth was supposed to drink from, "Try tipping her head back a little and I'll uh... pour it in?" Well, she didn't have any better ideas, so she had to go with his plan, despite having several reservations. What if Beth didn't swallow it and it ended up going down her windpipe and choking her? What would they do if she just spat it out? She was very good at throwing food that she didn't want on the floor, as well as upending several cups of juice, so if she didn't want the medicine there was a good chance that she wouldn't take it. Then again, they had no other choice but to try.

"Okay, but I'll sit down first- that might make it easier," she took a seat on the edge of the couch and balanced Beth on her knee so that she had her back to Quinn's chest. Quinn waited until Puck settled himself down in front of them before tipping Beth's head back slightly. Puck brought the medicine cup up to Beth's lips. The little girl tried to turn her head away; clearly not interested in drinking whatever they were offering her. Her cries grew louder as if in protest. Quinn bit her bottom lip and looked away, unable to deal with watching her daughter be so upset. Tears crept up into her own eyes and she had to blink rapidly to keep them away.

"Beth I hear you calling, but I can't come home right now," Puck's voice shook a little as he started to sing and Quinn knew that he was having as much trouble as she was dealing with this situation. It was a good idea to try singing- Beth loved her dad's voice and had been mesmerised quite a few times by his singing (Quinn had been too if she was totally honest). Beth's kicking slowed down a little as she heard the beginning of his song, allowing Puck to get the medicine a little closer, "Me and the boys are playing, and we just can't find the sound..."

He continued to sing and Beth grew a little quieter. She didn't stop crying or moving around, but she was definitely a little calmer. Puck tapped Quinn's hand after a couple of lines of the song. When Quinn looked at him he jerked his head, as if telling her to sing along with him. She hesitated for a second. She knew that Beth loved it when he sang and she didn't want to ruin the calming effect the song was having on her. Puck rolled his eyes when she hesitated, before poking her again with his free hand. He still hadn't managed to get the medicine to Beth, but the toddler was calming and she knew that he would get it to her soon.

"...You say you feel so empty, that our house just ain't a home," she joined him in the second voice, feeling quite self-conscious and just praying with everything that she had that Beth wouldn't find her voice irritating and increase her crying again. She needn't have worried. As soon as Beth realised that both of her parents were singing to her, her struggles stopped. She was still whimpering, but the kicking and hitting stopped completely.

Puck took advantage of her stilled movements and quickly tipped the medicine into her mouth, making sure to keep singing as he did so. Beth swallowed it without a problem. Puck fell backwards onto the floor as soon as he was certain she had taken it, the relief plain on his face. He made sure to keep the song going though, and Quinn started rubbing small circles on Beth's back as she sang along with him.

By the end of the song Beth's tears were almost dry. She was still clearly unhappy and uncomfortable- her temperature was still up- but she was no longer in temper-tantrum territory. Quinn kept her close though and continued to rub her back, remembering that she had loved it when her mother had done the same thing for her when she had been sick as a child. It had been the one time that she and her mother had gotten really close- whenever she had been sick.

"That was hell," Puck muttered after a few moments of silence. He had collapsed backwards so that he was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. He still had the medicine measuring cup in his hand. He looked completely wrecked, almost like he could fall asleep right there on the floor. She had noticed at Rachel's that he had looked tired, but hadn't thought much of it. She supposed that with work and looking after Beth, he hadn't had much time to himself and it was putting a strain on his energy.

"If you hadn't started singing I think we'd never have managed to get her to calm down," she couldn't help but be a little jealous of the way he always seemed to know what to do with Beth. He sat up at her words, almost as if he could sense that.

"I was scared shitless," he admitted, making her frown at him for swearing. He ignored her glare and continued, "Look I'm really not in the mood for your girly crap right now. Did you notice that it took the both of us singing to get her to stop? She loves you just as much as she loves me, if not more, she just can't vocalise it. And I've got a little sister who loves to be sung to when she's sick, so that's why the idea came to my head. You're not a bad mother so stop feeling sorry for yourself and get over it!"

Wow. She had no idea where that had come from. She hadn't realised that he had noticed her insecurities surrounding Beth. She knew that she had been acting a little weirdly around him lately, but she thought he hadn't picked up on it. He had been off in his own world a lot, distracted by whatever it was Santana had told everyone she thought, so she had believed he hadn't cared how she was acting.

"I don't think we should talk about this now. We'll probably upset Beth," she told him when she was sure that she could speak properly. Beth was still whimpering and although she had calmed down while they had sung to her, she was pretty sure that an argument would set her off again. Puck sighed as though he had expected her to avoid the topic, but he said nothing. He just flopped back onto his back, tossing the small medicine cup onto the table as he did so. After a few seconds he punched the ground in frustration.

"I just wish you'd listen and see what everyone else can bloody see," she didn't understand why he was so angry about this. It wasn't his problem. Beth loved him and that should have been all that mattered to him. It wasn't his job to worry about what Beth thought about her- it didn't affect his relationship with the toddler so it really was none of his business.

"I don't- look just shut up, okay? Beth is sick and I just want to focus on getting her better. You can berate me for everything I'm doing wrong later," Beth was starting to get agitated and she was unsure as to whether or not it was due to her fever or the argument that was going on around her. Puck didn't say anything. She risked a quick glance at him to find that he was watching them intently. There was something unsettling about his stare, almost as if he could see right through her skin and into her inner thoughts.

Beth suddenly started to cry in earnest again and Quinn quickly started to bounce her gently on her knee, rubbing her back again to try to soothe her. Puck sat up again and moved so that he was sitting right next to them on the couch. He was so close that his right leg was pressed up against her left. He rested his hand on Beth's shoulder and touched the back of his left hand against Beth's forehead. He frowned after a second.

"I think her temperature is still going up," he said, sounding worried. There was no sign of the anger he had exhibited only seconds before. She had forgotten that he often used anger as a cover for his anxiety (she blamed the lapse in memory on her anxiety because really she should know better. This was Puck after all- of course he would hide any emotion he considered a weakness.)

"It's only been a couple of minutes. It takes a while for that stuff to work. I think mum left the thermometer on the table. We should check her temperature in a few minutes, see what is happening with it," Puck nodded, but didn't move from his spot. Beth pulled her head away from his hand and continued to cry. Quinn didn't know what to do. She thought that babies only cried to alert their caregivers that something was wrong, but she and Puck were right there with Beth, trying to help her and the little girl was just crying even more.

The next few hours were torture. Beth's temperature rose slowly and she didn't like it. She continued to cry and kick and scream and Quinn felt like her heart was slowly shattering as Beth's pain became more and more obvious. They tried everything to calm her down- they sung to her, they rocked her, they walked around with her and they gave her lots and lots of cuddles, but nothing seemed to work. They kept forcing her to drink some water and juice because they were worried that with all of her tears she was going to become dehydrated.

"Let's just take her to the fucking doctor," Puck finally said after Beth had cried for three hours straight. Judy was still out at her friend's place- Quinn suspected that her mother was staying out of the way on purpose- and May was working so they couldn't ask her what to do. Quinn was so worried that she didn't even glare at Puck for his language.

"You really want to drive with her when she's like this?" she asked, pointing to where Beth was kicking and whimpering in his arms. It was Puck's turn to hold her and he was pacing around the living room, alternating between acting angry and worried as time went on. It was getting on her nerves, but she couldn't really tell him to stop when she was acting the same way.

"Maybe we should put her in a bath? I think I remember Ma putting Sarah into a warmish bath when she had a high temperature a few years ago. The water cools them down or something, but it can't be cold water 'cause it'd freeze them I think," she thought about it for a second before nodding.

"I think I've heard of that somewhere. Let's try it. If it doesn't work we can take her to the doctor," she rushed to the bathroom and turned on the tap for the bathtub, using her wrist to gauge the temperature. She had read that the water needed to be cool, but not cold, and it was difficult to tell what the right temperature would be. She waited until the water turned to a temperature she thought would work before putting in the plug. She kept the water quite shallow as Beth really wasn't very big at all. The whole process took about ten minutes (she had been really unsure about how cool the water needed to be) and by the time she called for Puck to bring Beth in, Beth was screaming again.

"Thank God it's ready. She started screaming as soon as you left the room," he told her as he gently manoeuvred the toddler into the bathtub. They had removed Beth's pretty dress earlier to help keep her cool, so she was just in a diaper and a tiny baby singlet. Beth squealed when she hit the water, the surprise and shock of being cool stopping her from crying. She thrashed around a little, but Quinn couldn't tell if she was protesting the cold or just playing around because she was in the bathtub.

"I just hope this works," she told Puck tersely, way too tense to get into another discussion with him. Puck wisely didn't say anything.

After a few moments Beth stopped thrashing and her cries slowed down. Within minutes she was splashing around like she usually did at bath time, cooing. Quinn felt herself laughing in disbelief. Beth had been so upset just seconds ago, and now she was happy? It did not make any sense at all. Puck, who was supporting Beth in the water, also laughed, sagging a little where he was sitting.

"Bipolar much?" he asked their daughter, who just tried to splash some water in his face in reply. Her movements were starting to get sluggish and it was clear that she was getting really tired.

"Mama?" she asked from the tub, pointing one of her arms vaguely in Quinn's direction. Quinn felt her heart stop for a second. Was Beth really asking for her? Puck turned and winked at her, before turning back to Beth.

"You want your mama to come get you?" he asked Beth, nodding in Quinn's direction since both of his arms were occupied in keeping her upright. Beth nodded and splashed some more water at him.

"Mama!" she demanded, flinging her arm towards Quinn again. Quinn felt her eyes water as it started to sink in. Beth loved her. Beth actually recognised her as being her mother. Shelby was no longer the main female figure in Beth's life.

"Well mama, you going to let B here freeze or are you going to help her out of the tub?" Puck looked very proud, as though Beth had just done something momentous and he had been a part of it. Quinn couldn't stop the large smile from appearing on her face as she quickly wiped her eyes and rushed over to the tub.

"Hey sweetie, let's get you dried off and into bed, okay?" her voice cracked with emotion, but she didn't care. Her daughter knew who she was, finally. Puck backed off as she took Beth into her arms, sensing that this was a moment that he didn't need to intrude on. He disappeared out of the bathroom quickly, leaving her with Beth.

"Mama," Beth said again, putting her fingers on Quinn's nose as if making sure that she knew who she was referring to. Quinn was sure that she would never get sick of hearing her say that word now that she was using it to refer to Quinn.

"Yes, I'm your mama," she told the girl softly, picking up a towel and gently drying her off, "Now I know you're feeling sleepy and I hope you're feeling better now and you can sleep. It's no fun being sick is it?" She kept up a running commentary as she finished drying her off and brought her to the crib. Puck was sitting in one of the two chairs they had moved into the nursery, looking ready to sleep himself.

"Dada!" Beth called out sleepily as she noticed him sitting there. Puck smiled and headed over to the crib so that he could say goodnight to her too.

"You feeling okay now B? You should get some sleep otherwise you're going to be cranky all day tomorrow," he tapped a finger against her nose, something Quinn had noticed he did a lot. It was a cute gesture that he seemed to do on instinct. Since Beth had a thing for noses, she wondered if it was a genetic thing. She made a mental note to observe May and Sarah and see if they used gestures like that.

"She feels a little cooler now, but I'm not sure if that's just a side-effect of the water or if her temperature really has broken," Quinn was still a little worried about how quickly Beth had recovered. From what she had heard about young children and illness, Beth's recovery was almost miraculous.

"Yeah I have a feeling she's going to keep us up all night with this. Her forehead isn't really any cooler," Puck confirmed after a quick forehead check, "We should probably take it in turns to sleep to make sure that one of us is always here in case she wakes up." From what he said she gathered that he was going to stay the night. She knew that he must have originally planned to be home by now- especially since Sarah was sick and had been staying with a neighbour all afternoon while he and his mother had been at work. Thinking of the young girl, she wondered how long the neighbour was happy to look after her.

"What about Sarah? Is your neighbour still looking after her?" she had totally forgotten about the young girl when Beth had been screaming, but she felt guilty now that Puck hadn't been able to help his sister feel better this afternoon. Puck shrugged before looking at his watch.

"Ma will be home by now, so Sarah will be with her. Mrs. Lawson loves looking after Sarah- reminds her of her own children or something- and Sarah doesn't mind staying over there for a day because Mrs. Lawson spoils her like crazy- gives her lots of cookies and lets her watch a lot of TV. But yeah, I'd probably better call Ma and let her know what is going on," he looked down at Beth, who was watching the pair of them with wide eyes, as though fascinated with their conversation. He patted her on the head a couple of times and she thought that he was going to move away to go call his mother, but he couldn't seem to pull himself away from their daughter.

"Alright B," as she heard the nickname fall from her lips for only about the fifth time ever, she briefly wondered when she had picked up his habit of shortening her name and hoped he hadn't noticed her copying him "Let's get you to sleep. Okay, so you have purple bear and Beebear with you and you've got your blanket so let's lie you down and read you a story, okay?"

She tucked the blanket loosely around her and made sure she was lying down. She then picked up the nearest storybook she could find. It was a story about a young bird that hatched when his mother was out of her nest, so he took off to go and find her. It was a sweet story and she had tears in her eyes at the end of it as it reminded her of Beth's own 'journey' to find her mother. Beth was sleeping by the time the story finished, so Quinn quietly put the book down and slipped out to find Puck, to see how his conversation with his mother was going (he had slipped out halfway through the story).

"...I know I have to take it at the same time every day," he was saying as Quinn was halfway down the stairs to the living room. She paused, knowing that it was wrong to eavesdrop, but being way too curious as to what he was talking about to stop herself, "I'm sure that it won't matter for one day... Seriously Ma, I'm fine! I'm not going to go off myself because I skipped my meds for one frickin' day... Okay, okay, what if I come back now and quickly grab my meds and then come back here for the night? I just need to make sure B and Q are going to be okay...Alright, I'll be home in like ten minutes."

Quinn felt frozen on the steps as he continued to tell his mother goodbye. What meds was he talking about? Was he sick? That would explain why people had been acting weirdly around him ever since Santana had said whatever she had. She had noticed that Finn had been a bit more careful when choosing his words when talking to Puck and Rachel had been outright avoiding him for a week or so. Had that been because Puck was really ill and they were worried about upsetting him?

But no, Puck had referenced suicide. She had thought that he had been a bit down for most of the year, but she had been trying to ignore him for most of it because it hurt too much to care. She remembered thinking, when she heard that he had tried to steal an ATM that it didn't sound like something he would do. He had driven into the side of a convenience store to do it... had it really been an attempt to steal the ATM or had he tried to kill himself? The thought made her hang onto the banister so that she didn't fall.

"Oh hey, did B go to sleep okay?" she couldn't answer him, her thoughts too caught up in what she had just discovered. How could she not have figured it out earlier? She was sure, now that she had thought about it, that she was right, that he had tried to kill himself last year. She had been so focussed on herself that she hadn't noticed that he was drowning just as much, if not more, than she had been. She had known that he had been upset about Beth and their 'break-up', but she hadn't realised that he had been so bad, "Hello, Q? What's going on?"

"Why- I mean... I didn't mean to but I heard and... Why didn't you tell me?" Puck looked confused for a moment before realisation hit.

"Fuck," he sounded more tired than angry. He turned so he was facing away from her, leaning up against the wall of the stairs. She had to lean over the banister to see him, but his face was out of her sight, "What did you hear?" She hated that he sounded so defeated, as though her finding out about his suicide attempt was the end of the world. It hurt to think that he couldn't trust her with this. She had thought that they were close enough friends that he would allow her to help him.

"Oh, you know, nothing really, just something about committing suicide and medication," she couldn't stop herself from being sarcastic. She was hurt and a little pissed that she had overestimated their friendship and she knew that it was probably unfair to take it out on him but she couldn't help it. She didn't want him to know how hurt she felt by all of this. Puck slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground, still facing away from her.

"Look, it's not like we were really talking back then you know? Every time I tried to talk to you, you brushed me off so I didn't say anything. And then after, when I had been to juvie and they told me I had this depression shit and they put me on meds, you and Ken-doll were together and you looked pretty happy and I just... It didn't matter anymore. I didn't tell anyone about it except for San, and I only told her 'cause she was snooping and found my meds. She's the one that spilled it to the gleeks the other day. I would've told you about it all eventually, but you've been upset about Beth and all and you don't need to deal with my shit too," his explanation made sense really, and made her feel guilty. It was true that he had tried to talk to her after their break-up- he had even sung to her in glee a couple of times. She had been the one to push him away.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you back then," she told him honestly, sinking down to sit on the stairs. She couldn't look at him when saying this- that would make the moment way too real, "I knew there was something bothering you, but I couldn't talk to you about it because I was scared that it was something to do with Beth, and I couldn't deal with any of that. I should have talked to you after you came back from juvie because I know that it didn't make sense what they said you did. But Sam was there and I just couldn't deal with everything and he didn't know about all of the shit that went down and it was nice to just try to forget you know? I wasn't happy, I wasn't the entire time Beth was gone- but I thought that it would all be worse if I kept hanging around you because you reminded me of what I had lost. It's not a good excuse, but that's the honest truth. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," it felt good to finally say all of that. She knew that he probably had figured out most of it, but it was good to actually acknowledge it herself.

"It's not your fault. My head had always been a little screwy. Crashing Ma's car into that store wasn't the first time I tried to off myself, but hopefully it will be the last. You had enough to deal with without all of the dark shit that resides in my head and if I had told you I'd probably have dragged you down with me. I'm better now- hardly having any 'unhelpful' thoughts at all and I know it's because everything's back on track now. I hate how everyone looks at me now that they know. I swear that I know how to deal with it all now- whenever I'm feeling shitty I come and hang out with you and B and I feel better. If that ever fails, Finn made me promise him that I'd go over to his place and play X-Box and I have my meds and it's all fine, really," she realised that he was trying to alleviate her guilt. He was telling her that she had nothing to feel guilty about, but it wasn't really helping. As far as she was concerned she had let him down.

"What about Lauren?" she surprised herself with that question. She just wondered why he hadn't mentioned his girlfriend in all of the strategies he had on hand to make him feel better.

"She's a good friend, I suppose, but she doesn't really know about any of this either. I mean, she might have figured it out, but she never mentioned it. There's not really any point in me telling her now, since she's going to stay away from everything glee related to save her rep," Quinn frowned at his answer, feeling confused.

"I thought the two of you were together?" she sort of hated herself for hoping that he would say that she was wrong. She shifted a little on the stairs, hoping she hadn't let her hope show in her voice. It was still a little weird to be having this conversation when she wasn't able to see him, but at the same time she was glad for it now as she knew her cheeks were probably bright red.

"Nah, we were hooking up but it wasn't really a real thing. She broke up with me at the start of summer anyway. She's been at a wrestling camp all summer anyway," he sounded even more tired than he had before and she knew that he was lying about not being that upset that his fling with Lauren was over. She guessed that he felt a little like she had when Finn had broken up with her. She hadn't loved Finn- well, not in a romantic way anyway- but it had hurt like hell to be rejected. She knew that Puck had been dumped more times in the past year than he had ever been before in his life and that had to hurt.

"When Finn broke up with me, I wanted to find the nearest hole in the ground I could find and stay there for the rest of my life. I wasn't in love with him, but it still hurt," she admitted, trying to find the words to tell him that it was okay if he had been hurt by the wrestler without saying it outright. She knew he wouldn't appreciate the direct approach.

"Finn's an idiot," Puck said bluntly, as if it was an obvious truth, "I mean, he dumped you for _Berry_. That's all kinds of crazy. I mean, Berry is kinda hot, but her personality sucks. You're hot like a pixie and although you went nuts for a little while there, you're still the coolest girl in the school. Finn needs to get his head checked." She felt like her cheeks were on fire she was blushing so much at his compliments and she was so glad that he couldn't see her because this conversation was getting way too personal.

"Well, Lauren obviously doesn't know what she's missing out on either. You are definitely worth keeping around for more than just hooking up. You are a good father and I seriously would have had a nervous breakdown if it wasn't for you. I feel closer to you than I am to anyone and I can't imagine not having you around anymore," he was being so honest with her that she felt compelled to be the same. She knew that it was probably out of character for her to say all of this, but she knew it was important for him to know how she felt. She was about to go on, but at that moment the front door opened and her mother entered the house. She saw Puck scramble to his feet quickly and she sighed before doing the same.

"How's Beth?" Judy asked them as she met them at the bottom of the stairs. If she noticed that she had interrupted anything between them, she didn't say anything. Puck was keeping his face turned away from her, but his fingers brushed the back of her hand as if to say that he had no bad feelings about their chat, but he wasn't going to say anymore. She understood. It had felt like they were on the verge of _something_ before they had been interrupted, but she wasn't sure what it was and she wasn't quite sure she was ready for it.

"She's sleeping, but I doubt that will last long. She still has a high temperature and she's due for some more medicine in about twenty minutes or so. I'm just going to head home and pick up a couple of things before coming back. I don't think I can sleep at home when I know she's sick," Puck explained, talking quite quickly as if anxious to head off. She realised that he had told his mother that he would be home by now, and figured that he was just eager to get back so May wouldn't worry.

"Okay, sounds good. You head home and Quinnie and I will make sure Beth's alright. We can figure out some sort of schedule when you get back," Judy was oddly composed about the idea of Puck spending the night at their house. Quinn had noticed that her mother had mellowed a bit when it came to Puck after that day they had spent at the park. She had wondered what had happened to thaw the ice in their relationship, but she hadn't been able to figure it out. She had initially thought that Judy had thought that since Beth had called Puck 'dada' that he was going to be in their lives permanently now, so she had to be nice to him, but she had never been really convinced that that had been all. After all, she had known that Puck was going to be a part of Beth's life for weeks before then, and she had never acted nice to him before.

"Cool. You alright Q?" Puck checked, his fingers once again brushing the back of her hand. She smiled and gave him a small nod.

"Sure. Say hi to your mother and Sarah for me. Make sure that Sarah is feeling better before you come back, okay? Beth will be okay for an hour or so- she'll hopefully sleep for most of it anyway. Just make sure that everything's alright at home before coming back, okay?" he rolled his eyes, understanding what she was really saying (that he needed to make sure he had all of his meds and that he was feeling alright before coming back) but he nodded anyway.

"Sure thing. See you in a few," she walked with him to the door and watched as he pulled away in his truck. She felt both relieved and sad as she watched his truck disappear down the end of her street- relieved because the tension that had been building slowly between them all summer was finally starting to disappear, sad because she missed him already (and wasn't that just opening another can of worms.)

"So, you and Noah seem to be getting really close," her mother commented as she returned to the living room. Quinn sighed, sure that her mother was going to make some derogatory comment about Puck now. That was why she was so surprised when her mother continued, "I'm glad. You could do a lot worse than that boy, despite his hideous Mohawk." Judy then walked out of the room, like she hadn't just dropped the most unexpected bombshell ever.

Quinn would have sat there in shock for another few hours, but there was a screaming cry from upstairs and she realised that the peace the bath had given Beth was short-lived. Sighing to herself she jumped to her feet and started up the stairs, knowing it was going to be a long night. At least she knew that Puck was going to be back by her side to help her through it.

* * *

><p>When Puck arrived home to pick up his meds he was almost bowled over by his mother, who had been anxiously waiting by the door.<p>

"You said you'd be home twenty minutes ago!" she scolded him after she finally released him from the massive hug she had forced him into, "I had this horrible vision of you crashing your truck in a ditch and then no one being around to help you. Next time call if you get held up, okay?" He felt bad that she had been so worried and he knew that if he hadn't had his close call with the convenience store she wouldn't have cared about him being late.

"Sorry Ma, I just got caught up talking to Quinn about stuff. I'll call next time. Where's the little squirt?" his mother's eyes had lit up in a scary way when he had mentioned talking to Quinn and he wanted to distract her from it. She seemed to have this crazy idea lately that he and Quinn were soul mates and meant to be or whatever, and while he secretly hoped that she was right, it didn't mean that he wanted to talk about it.

"Sarah's brushing her teeth. She's still not feeling overly well- according to Mrs. Lawson she didn't even ask for any cookies- so I thought it'd be best if she went straight to bed. I'm sure she'd like it if you went and talked to her for a bit though," she took a breath, as though she was going to continue talking and he knew that if she did he was going to have to face a barrage of questions about his talk with Quinn and he really didn't want that.

"Okay, I'll go check on her. I meant to get home earlier and watch that stupid chick flick she rented a couple of days ago with her, but B's sick so I didn't get around to it. She's probably going to bitch at me about that," he turned and headed for his sister's room before his mother could say anything else. He knew that she would try to catch him later, but he was pretty sure he could avoid her by saying that he had to get back to Beth. He had a feeling that his daughter was probably awake and unhappy again by now, so he wanted to make this stop at home as short as possible so he could get back and help Quinn.

"Noah, you're home!" Sarah flung her arms around his neck as soon as she reached him. She was in a clingy mood tonight then- not good for his plan to leave as soon as possible, but good in that it meant she wasn't going to whine and moan about how he loved Beth more than her. She was in her pyjamas already and her cheeks were a little flushed. He was reminded again that Beth wasn't the only girl in his life who was sick.

"What's this I hear about you not wanting cookies? Who are you and what have you done with my little sister?" he joked as he swung her onto her bed. She giggled before gesturing for him to lean in close to her so she could tell him a secret.

"I did eat cookies but I told Mrs. Lawson to tell mum that I didn't so she would make me some of her special soup," she whispered to him proudly before flopping backwards onto her bed. The soup she was referring to was one that their mother only made when one of them was sick. It was some sort of chicken noodle soup or something, and it was really delicious. Their mother wasn't the best cook in the world, but this soup was something else. Unfortunately she only made it when they were sick because she wanted it to be a special treat for them. It made sense that Sarah would lie so she could get some, but he probably shouldn't encourage her.

"You know, I could go and tell Ma what you just said," he told her casually, hiding his smirk as she jumped bolt upright, a dismayed expression on her face.

"You wouldn't! I made sure that she made enough for you to have some too, I swear!" he loved teasing her. She was so innocent that she always believed whatever he said, no matter how many times he tricked her. He knew that she was going to cotton on to the whole thing soon, but still... it was nice to know that she still believed in him.

"Alright, I suppose I can let it slide just this once," she cheered at his announcement- she really was hyper- and bounced up and down on her butt a couple of times.

"Will you watch the movie with me while we eat?" she asked hopefully, trying to use her puppy dog expression to get him to agree. This was what he had been afraid of. He really wished that he could, but Beth was sick and it just wasn't fair of him to leave Quinn to deal with her by herself.

"I wish I could kiddo," he told his sister honestly, knowing she wasn't going to appreciate it, "But Beth is sick and I really need to go help Quinn take care of her. I know you're sick too, but Beth is so little that she doesn't understand why she feels so icky and it's making her really upset. You're a big girl now and you have Ma and the soup and I know that you're going to be okay because you are my sister and every virus knows not to mess with you. I promise you that I will watch that movie with you as soon as Beth is better, okay? I'll even watch that Hannah Montana movie that you love so much with you as well." Sarah had turned away from him as soon as she had realised he wasn't staying with her. He held his breath, waiting for her to explode and cry about the fact that he didn't love her anymore and that Beth was stealing him away from her. He waited and waited for it, but the explosion didn't happen.

"You promise?" she asked instead in a low, quiet voice. He leaned forward and gave her a hug, even though she was still facing away from him.

"I promise. Q will probably want to watch it with you too, and we'll make sure that Beth is somewhere else, okay?" she turned around so that they were hugging properly. She buried her face into the side of his neck, startling him a little. They had always been a hugging family (his mother made sure of that) but Sarah was being extremely child-like today and for some reason it made him feel especially sad. He had a feeling that things were going to be different between the two of them from now on and he didn't quite know what to do with that.

"It's okay, she can come too," Sarah said, pulling away after a few minutes hugging him. She looked determined, as though she had made up her mind that she was going to be a big girl now and not be jealous, "I'm pretty tired so I'm going to go to eat some soup and go to sleep. Tell Beth I hope she feels better." Before he could say anything she slipped off her bed and left the room.

He really didn't know what to make of her behaviour. On one hand he was happy because she wasn't being the possessive little girl she had turned into lately, but on the other he worried that she would no longer need him in her life. He had been the closest thing she had to a father for the majority of her life and he wasn't really sure that he wanted that to change. Then again, he had a daughter of his own to think about now, so maybe he shouldn't be playing dad to his little sister.

He stayed seated on the end of her bed for a few moments before remembering what he had come home to do. He went to the bathroom and grabbed a few things- his toothbrush and his medication- before heading to his room to grab some spare clothes. A few minutes later he was ready to go.

"Trying to sneak off before I could catch you, were you?" his mother suddenly appeared behind him as he was about to head off. He totally had been going to find her before he left to let her know he was leaving, but he couldn't be bothered explaining that.

"I'll be home sometime tomorrow, depending on how Beth is," he told her, hoping she would let it go at that and let him off. He should have known he wouldn't be so lucky.

"Everything okay between you and Quinn? It must have been a long conversation if you were delayed by so long," she was trying to sound casual about it all, but he could hear the note of concern in her voice. It never disappeared lately. He sighed, knowing that he had to answer or her worry would grow.

"She overheard me say something about my meds and figured out a few things," he leant back against the wall and let his bag drop down near his feet. He knew that he wasn't going anywhere for a little while- his mother would have lots of questions.

"So she knows about everything that happened. What did she say?" she wisely kept her distance from him, even though he could read her desire to hug him from her expression.

"She was pissed that I didn't tell her and she kept apologising and shit. She seemed to think it was her fault. I told her that was stupid, but I don't think she believed me. We just talked a bit about last year and what went on and then Judy came home and I came here," she nodded her expression now unreadable. It was one of those mysterious 'I-know-something-you-don't-know' looks that chicks got every now and then. It drove him nuts every time he saw it, but he knew she wouldn't explain.

"Okay. Say hi to Beth, Quinn and Judy for me and call me if Beth gets any worse. I know a thing or two about sick infants, so I can help," she leant over and gave him a peck on the cheek before moving back to the kitchen, where Sarah was presumably eating her soup. Puck decided that he was never, ever going to understand women. Instead of worrying about it any further, he just picked up his bag and left, deciding that he should just consider himself lucky she hadn't asked him any more questions.

The truth of the matter was that he didn't really know how well his talk with Quinn had gone. He had been so pissed at himself for being too careless when talking to his mother on the phone that he hadn't really thought about not telling Quinn the truth. Then, when he had told her and she was freaking out about it all being her fault, he had been too busy trying to reassure her that he still hadn't had a chance to process what he was saying. All he had known was that he couldn't allow her to believe that she was a bad influence in his life, that she had almost killed him.

The question about Lauren had completely thrown him because she had almost sounded _jealous_ of the wrestler. That opened a whole new can of worms. He knew that he still loved Quinn and he would jump at the chance to be with her again, but he was almost one hundred percent sure that she didn't feel the same way about him. Yes, she had possibly cared for him when they had been together back before Beth had been born, but that had all changed when they had given up their child. Still, the way she had thought he was still with Lauren, the way she had been so curious to know if he had been real with her... maybe there was a chance for them yet.

And then there was what she had said just before her mother had interrupted them. She had sounded so sincere when she had said that she didn't know what she would do without him. He had been so close to getting up and kissing her that he was now kind of glad that they had been interrupted. He needed a chance to think about all of this. He was all for getting back together with her, but he had almost died the last time she had broken his heart and he had to be sure that she wasn't going to do that to him again before he could give it back to her again. That meant that he had to talk to her again, another real talk, but this time they had to be facing each other. He had to know if she was being honest or if she had just been blinded by the revelation of his depression.

As he drove back to Quinn's house that night he resolved to find the right time to talk to her again, when they wouldn't be interrupted by toddlers or mothers or sisters, so he could figure all of this out.

* * *

><p>Rachel really wished she had her camera with her. She was about to whisper this sentiment to Finn and Kurt when she realised that Kurt was two steps ahead of her already and was taking a photo of the scene on his phone. Five seconds later her phone buzzed as he sent the photo to her. She nodded her thanks to him, wanting to keep quiet for another few moments so she could fully appreciate the cuteness of the scene in front of her.<p>

Rachel, Finn and Kurt had decided to come to the Fabray house to visit Quinn, as the blonde hadn't been able to hang around for very long at the pool party. Okay, well, Rachel had decided that she wanted to go visit and she had dragged the two boys with her. She had wanted to go the next day after her party, but Kurt had reminded her that Beth hadn't looked too well when they had left and so they had waited another day before making the visit. Judy had let them in before heading off to work, muttering something about Beth keeping everyone awake all night and something about the living room. So the three teenagers had taken that to mean that their friend was in the living room, and that was when they had walked into what had to be the sweetest scene she had ever seen.

Noah and Quinn were passed out on the couch, Quinn's head resting on Noah's shoulder and her feet pulled up next to her on the couch. Beth was sitting on Noah's knee, a large smile on her face as she took in the visitors. One of Noah's arms was wrapped around her loosely, as if he had fallen asleep while holding her up on his shoulder. Beth waved happily at Kurt and started cooing. Neither of her parents stirred at the noise. Beth made a move to stand up, and Noah's arm automatically tightened its grip and he shifted slightly as he opened his eyes.

"Good morning Noah," Rachel said chirpily, unable to hide the amusement in her voice at finding him and Quinn in such a vulnerable position.

"What the- Berry, what the hell?" she laughed at the confusion in his voice. Beth laughed too before turning and grabbing her father's nose as some sort of weird greeting ritual. Noah looked as though he was going to move but then seemed to notice that Quinn was leaning on him and still asleep. If anything he just looked more confused.

"Hey dude, we just came to see if Beth was better," Finn took pity on his best friend, probably realising that he would probably be just as flustered and confused if someone walked in on him and Rachel sleeping like that. Noah blinked before touching the back of his hand against Beth's forehead. He looked relieved at whatever he felt.

"Uh yeah, her temperature has gone down now. She stopped crying at like 4am or something like that," he looked a little awkward as he sat there, trying not to move so he didn't wake up his... well, Quinn, up. Beth didn't seem to have the same concern. She grew tired of sitting on her father's lap and was much more interested in trying to get the attention of the visitors. She waved her arms wide and managed to smack Quinn in the face. Rachel expected that to wake the blonde up completely, but that wasn't what happened.

"Your turn to deal with her," Quinn murmured sleepily to Noah, pushing herself off his shoulder turning so she could curl up on the couch facing the other way, not even opening her eyes. She looked pretty exhausted- both of them did- and Rachel felt sorry for them. She had heard that sick toddlers were awful to take care of and it looked as though Beth had been particularly difficult. Noah yawned before changing his hold on Beth and standing. He stumbled for a second but managed to right himself before he fell.

"Fuck," he muttered as he stumbled. It seemed that his sensor didn't work when he was half asleep, as she knew that he had worked really hard to make sure that he didn't swear around his daughter. Beth giggled in his arms.

"Fuck!" she exclaimed proudly. If Noah had been half asleep before the swear left his daughter's mouth, he wasn't afterwards. Kurt snorted as he tried to hide his laughter and Finn shook his head, backing away slowly.

"What did she just say?" Rachel turned her attention back to the couch, where Quinn was now sitting upright, glaring daggers at Noah. The target of her wrath looked accusingly at the toddler.

"What, so it takes you weeks to learn to say 'mama' but I swear _once_ and you pick it up right away? You're evil, you know that?" Beth tilted her head to one side, as though wondering what he was going on about.

"Fuck?" Kurt had to leave the room he started laughing so hard, and Rachel had to fight very hard to keep the disapproving look on her face. Noah didn't need any encouragement to keep swearing and she figured that she should try to provide a united front with Quinn to make sure that he didn't get it. Noah sighed and hit the tip of Beth's nose with his finger.

"I give up," he said, trying not to laugh, "Let's go get you cleaned up. If you're anything like your mother I bet you want to get out of those smelly clothes." Beth cooed something unintelligible at him and they left the room. She heard Kurt say something to them out in the hall and she guessed that he was going to go give them fashion advice or something.

"So what brings you guys here?" Quinn asked as she flopped back onto the couch. Finn took a seat on one of the armchairs, but Rachel decided to stand. She had a feeling that they weren't going to stay very long, so there wasn't any point in getting comfortable.

"We just thought we'd stop by and see how you were all doing. You looked a little panicky when you left the party the other day, so we gave you a day to recuperate before coming up to check on you," she explained, "Was Beth really ill?" It was a little weird to see Quinn in such a disorganised state. She was usually dressed perfectly and so together whenever Rachel saw her. It showed how much she had mellowed since she had gotten Beth back that she hadn't thrown them out when she had realised that they were there. The old Quinn would have freaked out at the thought of glee kids seeing her looking a little messy (because despite the fact that she was half-asleep and still in clothes she had worn the day before, she still looked pretty good).

"She had a pretty high temperature for the past couple of days. We almost took her to the hospital a couple of times, but we managed to get it down in the end. She kicked and screamed all night for both nights poor thing. I honestly thought she'd sleep all day now that her temperature is down," the blonde yawned as she finished speaking and it was clear that she was having trouble staying awake.

"She seems pretty happy now though," Finn said, his natural optimism shining through, "She is a pretty happy baby, isn't she? I mean, she's always laughing and smiling whenever I see her. I think you guys are doing a pretty awesome job looking after her because it's obvious that she loves you." Rachel loved Finn's optimism, but she knew that he was probably going to now ask a stupid question (it was a pattern that she had noticed in his behaviour- that he would make a really sweet comment and then follow it up with a silly question) so she quickly intervened.

"Did you get much sleep at all?" okay, so maybe Finn was starting to rub off on her, because it was pretty obvious that the answer to that question was no. Quinn was nice enough not to point that out (which was probably another sign as to how tired she was because the old Quinn definitely would have given her a sharp look for that question.)

"Well, we tried to swap over so that one of us could sleep while the other kept Beth calm, but it didn't work very well. I'm lucky- I got to sleep yesterday afternoon because May came and took Beth for a little while, but Puck had to work. He's off today though, so hopefully he can get some sleep too. That's if Beth decides to sleep of course," she took a second to gather her strength before pulling herself up so that she was sitting on the couch instead of being draped all over it. It looked like it took a lot of effort, "How was the rest of the party? Sorry we had to leave so early. It was really fun for the time I was there and it was good to catch up with everyone." Rachel smiled brightly at the compliment. Back when she was a sophomore she would have had a heart attack and died happy if she had heard that Quinn Fabray had said something nice about her. She still wasn't used to being complimented on anything other than her singing from people her own age (except for from Finn, but he didn't count because it was his job as her boyfriend to dish out compliments).

"It was pretty good. We all just hung out and swam until around 9ish, then everyone went home. It kind of sucks that school's back next week otherwise we could have done it again. At least us guys have our game night tomorrow," Finn was really excited about this game night. He had tried to explain the rules of 'Halo' or whatever the stupid game was called to her, but she had cut him off halfway through because it just sounded utterly pointless. Still, all of the glee guys had spent at least an hour at her party organising it and telling each other how 'epic' it was going to be, so she didn't have the heart to burst his little bubble about the game.

"I'd almost forgotten about school," Quinn groaned, "Thankfully my mother talked to some of the women from church and managed to get Beth into day care at one of their houses every weekday, so at least she'll be fine whilst we're at school, and glee, but it's going to suck being away from her."

"Well, maybe she can come to Glee every once in a while. I'm sure Mr. Schuester won't mind. Did you tell him about Beth? He'll probably let you out of some of the practices so you can spend some more time with her, as long as you promise to practice for an hour or so every day. I know that your daughter comes first, but we need to win Nationals this year and we won't be able to do so unless everyone is at their very peak," Rachel didn't really mean to launch into lecture mode- she had been working on being more lenient about the awful practice schedules her teammates were following- but she was really passionate about glee. Besides, she needed to win Nationals to make sure that she got into NYADA, the school of her dreams.

"He's been in New York the whole holidays," Quinn replied, either totally ignoring Rachel's comments on the practice or not taking them seriously, "Besides, isn't it a bit weird to call up a teacher just to tell them that you have gotten your daughter back? I mean, Mr. Schue is awesome but some things are just too creepy." Rachel had to agree in one sense. Sometimes it was pretty weird how close Mr. Schuester was to everyone in New Directions, but at the same time it was hard not to tell him everything. The Spanish teacher just had that charm about him that made it impossible not to spill your guts out.

"I wonder how his show is going. I know that that April woman replaced him for the first couple of shows, but I think that he managed to get his spot back. I read that the show is really popular anyway," she had been keeping up with all of the news out of New York just in case they mentioned him. She wanted him to do well in his show, but at the same time she hoped that it was a bit of a flop so he wouldn't decide to leave them after all.

"It would be so cool if he won a Tony or some sort of award for his performance. If anyone deserves it, it's Schue," Finn didn't see the problem that an award would pose for their teacher. Mr. Schuester was certainly talented enough to make it big in Broadway, and that career was definitely more rewarding than being a high school Spanish teacher (at least it was according to Rachel anyway). The only thing keeping him at McKinley was the glee club. That was another reason why they needed to do well from the start of the year- if they weren't up to scratch from the start then he might decide to cut his losses and they would end up with some crazy janitor as their vocal coach or something. She couldn't let that happen.

"Well there is no arguing that he deserves a multitude of awards, but he can't leave New Directions. We are totally screwed if he does," she reminded Finn. She loved him but sometimes she wished he could see the bigger picture.

"Mr. Schue won't leave us, don't worry," Kurt announced as he came back into the room. Noah and Beth were still missing so she guessed that either Noah had become frustrated with Kurt's fashion suggestions or Kurt had just told Puck what to dress the girl in and then left him to it. Although if it was the latter option then Kurt was crazy if he thought that it would be safe to trust Noah to keep to the planned outfit without supervision, "Q, we seriously need to get to the mall before the end of the holidays. The clothes you have for Beth are going out of season. I got a heap of cash from one of my aunts recently- she's a bit senile and thought that it was Christmas- so I simply insist on buying Beth something that is in season before she heads to day care. Kids are cruel these days and we don't want Beth to be teased because of her outfits."

"I'm sure that the other one-year olds will be waiting to pounce on her for being out of fashion," Quinn humoured him, shaking her head with a small smile. It was hard to be offended by Kurt when he was criticising fashion because he was just so knowledgeable about it and he loved it so much. Rachel had been criticised by him so many times for her choice in clothing, but she couldn't get mad at him for it. It was just who he was, "Let me guess- you tried to convince Puck to dress her in pink and he refused?" Kurt sighed, as though realising that his talents were underappreciated in this group.

"The pink dress with the little yellow ducks," he admitted, "But only because we could put her hair up with those pink bows with yellow spots. It would be so cute." Rachel pictured it in her head and had to admit that he had a point.

"I'm guessing Noah kicked you out then," Kurt shrugged.

"If you call pointing at the door and growling something caveman-like kicking me out, then yes, that's what Puckerman did. He didn't seem to have the energy to actually throw me out so I took pity on him. Unfortunately for Beth that means that she's probably going to end up dressed in ripped jeans and obscene t-shirts," Quinn did look mildly offended at that.

"I gave him instructions about what he can and can't dress her in," Quinn assured Kurt, "Besides she doesn't have any jeans. And Beth has Puck's attitude towards pink- she objects every time I try to put her in it. She wears any other colour, but protests pink. I think the hatred of the colour must be genetic because I've never seen Sarah wear pink either."

"Hmm, that's an interesting idea. Is Puckerman always around when she objects to pink? Maybe it's just his presence. It would be a real shame if she has an aversion to the colour from such a young age. It'll limit her ability later in life to choose her colour palate properly," Rachel didn't have a clue what Kurt was talking about, but he had given her a good idea.

"Quinn, you and Noah are obviously exhausted. Why don't you let the three of us take Beth out to the mall for a couple of hours? That way the two of you can get some rest and Kurt can purchase an outfit he considers acceptable for Beth to start day care. It would only be for a couple of hours, so Beth won't get too tired," she really thought it would benefit everyone if they went with her plan, but she could tell that Quinn wasn't overly happy with the idea. She probably hadn't been away from Beth for more than a couple of minutes ever since they had taken her back.

"Yeah we'd look after her. I'm betting that you haven't had much time to yourself the past few weeks and you look like you could fall asleep standing up at the moment," Finn chimed in before pausing, a confused expression crossing his face, "Can you fall asleep standing up? 'Cause that would be pretty cool, but your legs would really hurt when you woke up in the morning." Rachel ignored the comment and focussed on Quinn. The blonde was biting her lip as though considering how to let them down gently.

"I have plenty of babysitting experience," she cut in before Quinn could say no, "I've helped out at the Temple crèche for years now. You can ask Noah. I'm good with children. And Finn's right. You and Noah need to get some sleep. The mall is only a five minute drive from here and we'll use a car seat and Kurt is a really careful driver and we'll seriously be careful with her and she shows any sign of not being okay we will bring her straight back to you. Think of it as being practice for when school starts and Beth is in day care all day, without you." For a second it looked like Quinn wasn't convinced, but then she seemed to steel herself and she nodded reluctantly.

"You have to get Puck to agree first, but if he does then you can take her," Rachel squealed with delight and clapped her hands, proud that she was among the first few people other than Beth's family to be allowed to take her somewhere.

"What do I need to agree to?" Noah asked as he walked into the room, with Beth teetering along behind him. She was dressed in a navy blue skirt with a red t-shirt. Rachel didn't see anything wrong with the outfit, but Kurt winced as though it pained him.

"Finn, Kurt and I are going to take Beth to the mall for a couple of hours so you and Quinn can get some sleep," Rachel said confidently. She knew that Noah loved his daughter dearly, but she was sure that he would jump at the chance to get some proper sleep. She also knew that he trusted Finn. She wasn't sure that he trusted her, and he definitely would have said no if it was just her and Kurt offering, but he and Finn had been best friends for years and so she knew he would let Finn watch over Beth.

"That's cool with me. Just don't get her anything pink," he reached the couch and collapsed back into the seat he had vacated before (Quinn was still sitting up so he had plenty of room). Beth veered off from the path her father took and ended up at Finn's feet. He smiled down at her from his seat and gave her a little wave. Beth's eyes widened and she lifted her arms in a silent plea to be picked up. She definitely was going to be a handful when she was older. Finn obliged to her request and seated her on his knee.

"Okay, so if you're going to the mall then you need to grab her stroller and the car seat and a diaper bag and..." Quinn started to list the things that they needed to grab, but Noah interrupted her.

"There's a car seat in my truck and Beth's stroller is in the back, with pretty much everything you'll need in it," he chucked a set of keys at Kurt, "The diaper bag is really the most important thing other than the seat and the stroller. You might need to pick up a couple of things from the bed of the truck- I was kinda in a hurry when I threw the stroller in there so it might have made a mess." Rachel nodded, pretty sure that she knew what they needed to grab. She had baby cousins that she had babysat before so she knew what she was doing.

"We'll be fine. You two get some sleep," she assured them as she gestured for the two boys to get up so they could leave.

"Call if there are any problems," Quinn still didn't look overly happy with the situation, but Noah just looked tired. She thought it was nice that he trusted Finn so much. She kind of wished that she had a friendship as close as the one the two boys shared. She hoped that she and Quinn could become close, but she knew that it would never compare to the lifelong friendship Finn and Noah had.

"Just sleep Q," she heard Noah say and she glanced back behind her to see that Noah was making himself comfortable on the couch, his eyes already closed. Quinn seemed to consider getting up but then thought better of it. As Rachel was exiting the front door she saw that Quinn had settled herself down next to Noah, her head on his shoulder, just like they had been sitting when the trio had arrived earlier.

"Bet you twenty that the two of them are together by the time school starts," she jumped at Kurt's voice in her ear. She hadn't realised that he had stopped to look back at their exhausted friends. She had assumed that he had gone to get Beth's stuff.

"Betting is wrong and can lead to serious financial and social difficulties later on in life," she said automatically, closing the front door and turning to lead them down the driveway, "I wouldn't take that bet anyway- you would definitely win that one." They reached Noah's truck and she directed Kurt to get the stroller from the back (he was taller and therefore could reach over the bed of the truck more easily) and she got the car seat while Finn kept the toddler occupied. He seemed to be playing some sort of game of peek-a-boo with her and she kept on squealing with delight whenever he uncovered his face.

"I think I've got everything but Puckerman was right when he said that it was a mess," Kurt popped back next to her as she was attaching the car seat to the backseat of Kurt's range rover. He looked distinctly unimpressed with the state of Noah's truck and she wondered what it was he had found that had disgusted him so much, "Now you're with me on the pink issue, right? We have to change the girl's mind and get her away from Puckerman's influence. Pink is in right now and she has to look good." He continued to chatter about the perils of discounting a colour from a young age as they made sure all of Beth's stuff was put in the car correctly. Then they called Finn over and spent the next ten minutes trying to convince Beth that the car seat was not the root of all evil.

"Why is she squirming so much?" Finn asked, exasperated with the young girl's difficult behaviour. He was holding the girl firmly in the seat from one side whilst Rachel handled the straps. Kurt had climbed into the driver's seat a few minutes before, pointedly keeping away from the process.

"Consider this practice for when the two of you have kids," he had said before leaving them to it. She had a feeling that he was videoing the whole thing and made a mental note to check his phone and delete it before the end of the day.

"It's okay Beth; you're going to love the mall! I know that you don't want to be strapped in, but it's the only safe way to get there and you want a pretty new outfit don't you? Please just stop squirming so we can leave," she pleaded, feeling her patience slipping away. How did Quinn and Noah deal with this? She knew that they didn't take Beth out in the car every day, but still... if she was this difficult with the car seat she was probably difficult with other things too. She suddenly had a new appreciation for the amount of work her two friends were putting in each day.

They finally managed to get Beth into the car and Rachel climbed into the front seat, leaving Finn to sit in the back with Beth. The little girl babbled happily to Finn the entire trip to the mall, leaving Kurt looking a little bemused and Rachel figuring out that Beth was more like her mother than she had originally thought.

"You know, I think she's going to be a bit of a drama queen," Kurt commented as they entered the mall. Beth had no problem with her stroller- she was sitting in it staring at all of the people around them with wide eyes- and Rachel had made sure that she was the one controlling it. (Finn had wanted to have a stroller race and she didn't trust Kurt to get distracted by an item of clothing in a window and accidentally push Beth into a wall).

"I think Puck's going to end up punching a lot of guys in the face," Finn interjected, "I mean, look how cute she is now. She looks so much like Quinn, and well, Quinn's hot so Beth is going to be too." Rachel considered whether or not it was worth getting upset over the fact that Finn had called Quinn hot, but in the end she was with Finn and Quinn wasn't. She also couldn't deny that it was the truth- if she was a guy she knew that she would totally want to date Quinn.

"Ooh I so hope I get to see what happens when Beth starts dating. Puckerman will turn all Hulk-like," Kurt quipped, stopping briefly at the window of a shop but continuing after a moment.

"Well his sister is going to start dating in five years or so. That'll give us a preview of what he'll be like with Beth," Finn said, "He's pretty protective of Sarah and he's already told her she can't date till she's thirty." They all paused as they contemplated the mayhem that would go down, before laughing.

"Well Beth, I'd hate to be one of the guys that's going to want to date you," Rachel leaned forward to look over the front of the stroller. Beth just blinked at her as though she had no idea what she was talking about.

"Oh hey guys, enjoying the last few days of holidays?" she looked up to find Miss Pillsbury and Mr. Schuester standing in front of them. Miss Pillsbury was holding a couple of bags, and one of Mr. Schuester's arms was wrapped around her waist.

"Hey Schue, Miss Pillsbury, we're just shopping for a new outfit for Beth," Finn nodded at the little girl, who was looking at the newcomers with wide eyes. The two teachers exchanged puzzled glances before looking back at the toddler.

"Isn't Beth the name Puck and Quinn gave to their daughter?" Mr. Schuester asked as he took a closer look at Beth's face.

"She does look a lot like Quinn," Miss Pillsbury added, also scrutinising the girl's face. Beth didn't seem to mind the extra attention and she started babbling happily.

"She is their daughter," Kurt told them quickly, "Shelby died and somehow that meant that Beth was given back to Quinn and so she and Puckerman have decided to raise her. They let us babysit for the afternoon because Beth really needs a new outfit and Puckerman is a bad influence on her fashion sense."

"Oh that's... how are you doing with all of that Rachel?" Miss Pillsbury was a guidance counsellor at heart and she must have remembered that Shelby was her biological mother. She forced herself to smile at the red-head.

"I'm doing better with it all. I think it is fantastic that Quinn and Noah have Beth back because they are definitely happier now that they have her back. I hate that Shelby died before we could really make peace with each other, but the fact of the matter is that I still have my dads and I couldn't have better parents than them anyway," she had spent hours practicing that answer, just in case someone asked. She wasn't entirely sure that it was the truth, but she decided not to think about it. Shelby was the past and Finn was her future, so she had decided to concentrate more on the more pleasant side of life. She had made sure that she either saw or talked to Finn every day of the break and so far it had worked.

"Wait so Quinn and Puck are sharing custody of Beth? Are they both coming back to school next week?" Mr. Schuester looked worried. It was so nice to know that they had a teacher who genuinely cared about them and their wellbeing at the school.

"She lives at Quinn's house and Noah helps out. They're both coming back to school and glee- they've already got a day care plan sorted out. Noah also has a job working with Kurt's dad at the garage but he's worked out a schedule that will allow him to stay in glee," Rachel assured the teacher, "They seem to be coping okay with it all. Beth was really sick the last couple of days though, so they are running on no sleep at the moment, which is why we offered to look after Beth for a few hours. They're at home sleeping whilst we get Beth some fashionable outfits." The teachers exchanged glances again, but said nothing.

"Beth's pretty smart," Finn said eagerly, "She already calls Puck 'dada' and Quinn 'mama' even though she didn't really know them last year. And she can sing too- Puck says she loves it when he plays his guitar and when they sing to her. She is so going to be a member of glee club when she's old enough." As if to support Finn's words, Beth started cooing in a very sing-song voice. Mr. Schuester laughed and clapped his hands, delighted with her little performance.

"She is definitely something special," he agreed. He opened his mouth to say more, but his phone gave a quick chirp, "Anyway we'd love to stay and chat for a while but we've got somewhere we need to be. The first glee rehearsal is first day back, so don't forget. We're going to hit the ground running so we're prepared for sectionals and nationals from the start. This is going to be our year!" They said goodbye and watched as the two teachers hurried off together.

"Those two are so obvious. I don't know why they're not married by now," Kurt observed as they continued on their way, "I mean Karl the dentist was good looking, don't get me wrong, but Miss Pillsbury has been in love with Schue for forever and it just didn't make sense for her to forget that and jump into a marriage with the dentist. It was obvious to everyone that it wasn't going to last." He got a text on his phone and almost walked into a clothes rack as he read it.

"I think that she just didn't want to settle for being second best," Rachel said as she struggled to push Beth's stroller through a group of teenagers. The teens were only a year or so younger than her and they all gave her snobby looks as they took in the sight of her with a stroller. She wondered what they thought, if they believed that Beth was her daughter. She would actually be quite proud to have a daughter as beautiful and lively as Beth, but other teenagers probably had a different opinion. She supposed that they believed she was a slut if she had a daughter when she was only seventeen. It made her feel a little self-conscious and she admired Quinn even more for being able to take her daughter out in public with her head held high.

"What do you mean?" Kurt asked once he had replied to his message.

"Well, it was obvious that Mr. Schuester was in love with her while he was still with his wife, but then he kinda fooled around a bit once they split up. I'm pretty sure he made out with Shelby at one point, and he was attracted to Miss Holiday when she was at McKinley and I'm guessing that Miss Pillsbury got sick of waiting. Karl wanted her and he wasn't looking at anyone else so she took what she could get. Of course it was a mistake but they've sorted it out now and they're happy," it was similar to the situation she had been in with Jesse. He had been interested in her and Finn had been acting all weird and distant and so she had taken what she could get. She understood what Miss Pillsbury had done and was glad that everything had worked out for the both of them.

"Well you're my number one Rach, so don't get any ideas about running off with a dentist," Finn joked, throwing an arm around her. He almost made her drive the stroller into a group of women off to their left, but she didn't care. It always made her smile when he said things like that, and her heart beat faster in her chest. She was so lucky to have a sweet boyfriend like Finn.

"Wouldn't dream of it," she promised, leaning up to give him a quick peck on the cheek. Kurt rolled his eyes as though he had to put up with their lovey-dovey behaviour all of the time, but she could see the hint of a smile on his face.

"Okay love birds, let's get to it. We only have an hour and a half to find the perfect outfit for the little munchkin before her parents freak out- well, before Quinn freaks out- so we'd best get to it," he pointed dramatically at the baby clothing store they had just arrived at, "Of to work we go." Finn groaned and Rachel laughed as Kurt practically dragged the three of them inside. This was going to be a long hour and a half, she was sure.

* * *

><p>Puck was in the middle of a really nice dream- he and Quinn and Beth were having a picnic on the beach or something like that- when he was rudely awoken by someone shaking his shoulder.<p>

"Noah, where's Beth?" he heard the question but he had no idea where he was at the moment, so confused as to what was real and what was a dream, that it took him a moment to recognise his mother standing in front of him. After a few seconds he realised he was on the couch in the Fabray house, with Quinn asleep on his other shoulder and his mother and sister standing in front of him.

"What?" he asked sleepily when he had regained the ability to talk.

"I said where is Beth? Judy is at work but I can't find Beth anywhere. You're supposed to be watching her!" his mother looked pretty panicked, but he couldn't really fathom why. Beth was fine, safe shopping with Rachel and Finn and Hummel. Oh. He realised that his mother didn't know that last bit of information.

"Berry and Finn took Beth so we could get some sleep. They're at the mall or something. Hummel was going on about pink. Can I go back to sleep now?" May visibly relaxed and looked a little guilty at accusing her son of being irresponsible. She started to say something to him, but it sounded a lot like she was going to let him go back to sleep, so he just closed his eyes and drifted off. He was sure she would repeat what she had been saying to him later.

When he next woke up Beth was sprawled out across his lap and Quinn's. Quinn was still asleep on his shoulder, but somehow he had managed to wrap his arm around her in his sleep. Quinn's arms were wrapped around their daughter, protecting her in her sleep. Quinn was kind of squishing his arm and his legs were numb from Beth's weight, but he decided he would just roll with it and he closed his eyes, more than happy to get some more sleep.

"...Rachel was very polite when she brought Beth inside. She saw that the two of you were still asleep so she dropped her off and left without a fuss, saying that she would talk to you later. That boy- Kurt?- looked a little disappointed they couldn't show off Beth's new outfit, but she was ready for her nap and the two of you looked really comfortable on the couch so he didn't say anything. I think he took a picture of the two of you on his phone though- you did look quite cute snuggled up on the couch," his mother was talking softly, but the words still penetrated into his mind. What was she going on about?

"We were just so tired from being up all night that we just kind of collapsed as soon as they took Beth," Quinn sounded embarrassed about something. He felt cold on his left side for some odd reason, and his arms and legs felt stiff. Still he couldn't bring himself to open his eyes just yet.

"Yes well Noah hasn't been sleeping well for a while now and it probably just caught up with him," his mother sounded amused for some reason, but again he couldn't figure it out.

"I've heard that some medications can make it hard to sleep," Quinn sounded hesitant, as though unsure if she should be asking the question. Puck didn't really know how he felt about her asking for information from his mother. On one hand he felt like she should be asking him all of these questions, but at the same time he knew that he wasn't the most talkative person in the world and if he was her, he'd ask his mother too.

"I don't think that's why he hasn't been sleeping," his mother was good at reading him and he knew that whatever she was about to tell Quinn was the truth. He knew that all he had to do to stop her was open his eyes, but he couldn't make himself do it. He kind of wanted Quinn to know what he was thinking and feeling, and he knew that he was shit with words so it made sense to just let his mother say it, "He's been worried about you and Beth mostly, and also about what the glee kids think about his depression. He likes to pretend that he doesn't care but as you know he does. He knew that you were upset about how Beth was connecting with him and it frustrated him that you couldn't see that she was connecting with you too. He was worrying about things- that was why he wasn't sleeping well." There was a silence as Quinn absorbed what May had said.

It took a while for him to process it all too. He hated that his mother was right because that meant that Quinn now knew that he spent a lot of his time thinking about her. He also loved that his mother was right because it meant that Quinn knew that she meant a lot to him. He knew that he was still going to have to find his own words to tell her that, but his mother had kind of made it easier for him now. He just didn't know if he was ready to do that yet.

"I worry about him too," Quinn admitted in a quiet voice, "I knew something was off with him last year but I was so determined to not hurt him anymore that I just left him alone. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time but now I'm not so sure. I probably should have said something back then." She sounded so sad and guilty that he almost opened his eyes then and there to assure her that it was okay. He didn't though because he knew that she wouldn't appreciate the fact that he had been eavesdropping on their conversation. They obviously thought that he was asleep otherwise they wouldn't be talking so openly.

"I know that this is probably going to sound stupid, but I'm glad that you didn't talk to him then. If things had turned out differently- like if he had killed himself that night- then I'm sure that I would have had a different opinion, but the truth of the matter is that he is happy now. You and Noah have had a hard couple of years, there is no doubting that, but you have managed to survive and that's what matters. I know that you care deeply for my son and I know that he feels the same for you and you have a beautiful daughter together. I'm not saying that the next few years are going to be easy, but you need to stop feeling guilty for what has happened in the past because you can't change it. All you can do is look ahead to the future and make sure that you don't repeat past mistakes. You have a second chance at having a family and all you need to do is make sure that you take that chance." There was a rustling sound followed by footsteps leading away from the couch and he took that to mean that his mother had left.

Now he was in a bit of a predicament. He couldn't just open his eyes now because it would be obvious that he had been listening to their conversation. He really needed to pee now though, and he was twisted in a slightly uncomfortable position, so he wasn't going to be able to stay still for much longer.

"I know you're awake Puck, its okay," Quinn said after a few moments had passed. He sighed with a mixture of relief and wariness- if she knew he was awake, did that mean that she was going to kill him for eavesdropping? He didn't know the protocol for this kind of situation. The living room was empty except for them- he could hear his mother and sister talking in the kitchen- and he assumed that Beth was up in her crib sleeping.

"What time is it?" he asked, hoping to distract her from whatever punishment she was probably going to give him for pretending to be asleep. She shrugged.

"Sometime after two I think. I only woke up about ten minutes ago," she was playing with the cross she wore around her neck, winding it around her fingers then letting it go. She looked nervous which he took as a good sign. She usually looked annoyed when she was going to yell at him.

"Right," he stretched his left arm out, trying to get the blood flow running normally through it again. He decided his bladder could wait a few minutes- he had a feeling Quinn had something she wanted to say and he definitely didn't want to interrupt her.

"Did you really mean what you said to me in the hospital that day?" she asked softly, her green eyes boring into his as though she was trying to search his soul for the answer. He was a little surprised by her question. He had thought that she was going to talk about more recent times, not those words he had spoken what seemed like an eternity ago.

"Especially now," he confirmed, repeating the two words that had been both heartbreaking and true- heartbreaking because of the adoption and true because in that moment he had finally realised what his true feelings for her had been. She smiled at the proof that he knew what she was talking about.

"I never said it back to you," she moved from the armchair she had been sitting in when he had woken up to where she had been sitting with him on the couch. She turned so that she was facing him and took a hold of his left hand in hers, "I was so scared that day and I knew that we were giving Beth away and everything was just too much." He opened his mouth to tell her that it was okay, he got it, but she put a finger to his lips to stop him, "I need to tell you this, okay?"

"Okay," he agreed, mesmerised by how close she was and the honesty in her voice.

"I know I barely looked at you this past year and believe me when I say that it hurt me as much as I know that it hurt you for me to do that. And then we got Beth back and you've been here for me and her all of the time and it just reminded me how lost I am without you. With everyone else I am just the blonde bitch who used to be head cheerleader, but with you I am a real person and... Well, I love you. Especially now," she had barely finished speaking when he pressed his lips to hers. He wanted to tell her that he loved her too, but her speech was just so perfect and he knew that he would never be able to match her in words. He had been wanting to kiss her for weeks now (months, years really) and to be able to do so now... it was just incredible.

"Eww! Mum, Noah and Quinn are kissing!" Quinn jumped at Sarah's voice, but Puck just gave his sister the finger. Quinn pulled away from the kiss after another second to punch him in the shoulder.

"Hey, what was that for?" he protested, rubbing his shoulder (for a small girl she packed a good punch).

"That was for being rude to your sister," Quinn told him, but the smile on her face told him she wasn't really mad. She leant her head back down on his shoulder and he automatically put an arm around her waist, drawing her closer to him. Sarah made a face as though she was going to be sick as she watched them.

"Can we watch the movie now?" she demanded, apparently getting over the fact that her brother now seemed to have a girlfriend (then again, Sarah was only ten so she probably had thought that Quinn and him were dating anyway. He had never really sat down and talked to her about it). As Sarah set up the DVD and his mother came down the stairs carrying Beth (okay, so their kiss must have gone on for much longer than he thought because he totally hadn't noticed his mother go upstairs), Puck felt happier than he had ever been in his life. All of his girls were together in the one place, and Quinn was his again.

He knew that things weren't going to be easy- when school started he was going to have a million things to do and it was going to stress him out- but right now, in this minute he was in heaven. As the movie started there was only one thing left that he had to do.

"I love you too, especially now."

The End...

Litanya: 84 000 words later, I hope you all enjoyed the fic. Review if you wish and have a Happy New Year!


End file.
